


The Rainmakers

by Lothithil



Category: MacGyver
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-13
Updated: 2007-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-05 05:05:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 50,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/402739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lothithil/pseuds/Lothithil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a certain man that the Powers That Be call upon when there's trouble a'brewin'... and his name is MacGyver. This story is a 'what if Andy Colsen was really Pete Thornton, working undercover' Gap filler for First Gambit and Pilot episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Separate Assignments

**Author's Note:**

> A MacGyver FanFic for Rockatteer and the MOL mob.
> 
> Author's Note: this story begins just before the opening Gambit of the Pilot episode. Pete Thornton and MacGyver both work for the DXS as field agents—Pete has not yet gotten his promotion to Deputy Director. I'm making up some names and throwing in some familiar faces when I can.
> 
> I'd like to mention my thanks to MacBeth, for helping me ENORMOUSLY by scripting the dialogue from the pilot, and for all her help with editing, spelling, cheerleading, and trout-wielding. Gold star!

**Chapter One: Seperate Assignments**

 

Pete Thornton held the phone lightly to his ear, hoping to hear the dial tone suddenly interrupted by a familiar voice. The line clicked and that voice began to speak, but Pete cursed softly; the tones of confidence and humor were there, but it had the flat and tinny sound of a recording. Pete knew for certain that his hopes had been in vain—he had reached the answering machine.

Pete hated answering machines, and he hated one certain answering machine in particular at this moment. None of the things he had to say could be recorded on such a device; such was the nature of his work. He rapidly composed an abbreviated message in his head, but when the beep sounded he hung up the receiver instead of speaking.

With a thwarted wrinkle on his brow, he picked up the phone again and dialed swiftly. It was answered in half a ring. "Thornton for Col. Barnard." He waited a few moments more before a deep voice rumbled over the line.

"No luck, sir… No, he wasn't home… possibly on another assignment…no, his machine didn't say when he'd be back… it's no problem, sir; I'm leaving now."

Pete hung up the phone again and sighed. "Looks like I'm on my own on this one," he muttered softly. He slid open a drawer and filled his pockets with some personal items, then hooked his jacket off its peg on the wall. Shrugging into it as he walked to the elevator, he couldn't shake the feeling that he shouldn't leave without sending his friend some kind of message.

Pete snapped his fingers as an idea occurred to him. He turned on his heel and marched back around his desk, where he rummaged through a deep filing cabinet. Extracting an object, he hurried down the hall and into the antechamber outside of the Deputy Director's Office.

The secretary looked up with a smile as he entered. "Mr. Thornton, did you need to see Col. Barnard?"

"No, Helen, thanks. I wanted to ask you a special favor. I'm leaving on an assignment, but I can't reach MacGyver. Could you see to it that he gets this message?"

Helen accepted the object with a raised eyebrow, but she agreed to give it to MacGyver as soon as she saw him. She had worked with field agents long enough to know that asking questions was a futile exercise.

That still didn't keep her from wondering in her private mind, "What on Earth does Pete Thornton want to say to MacGyver… with an umbrella?"

**MacGyver's Voice-Over:  
** _There's a popular saying:_ 'Into every life a little rain must fall.' _It's one of those clichés that people say to one another when they can't think of anything really useful to say, kinda a way of saying_ 'Everyone has troubles—get over it' _without sounding mean._

_I like to look on such situations with a little more optimism, say,_ 'How do you know you're having a good time, if you don't have a bad time now and again?'

_I guess the only question I can ask myself now, as I'm clinging to a vertical rock-face with nothing but my fingernails and eyelids, is_ 'Am I having a good time or a bad time?'

_I haven't fallen yet, so I guess this is a_ _**good** _ _time!_

_To keep myself from realizing how very high up above the ground I am, and how extremely mortal I am feeling, I let my mind wander back to my childhood, to times when I'd tackled more than I should have and had come out with more-or-less rewarding results. Old Man McGinnis' p_ _alomino **hadn't** killed me that night, after all, and I had gotten an exciting ride out of the deal, even if Hector had eventually caught up with me and ruined my best pair of Toughskin jeans by ripping a hole in the… well, at least I didn't need stitches… the jeans did, though! Mom wasn't too impressed—I got grounded for a week and had to buy a new pair of school pants out of my allowance._

_If I fall off of this cliff—which I'm currently climbing 'somewhere in Central Asia'—I doubt that there are enough pennies in my piggybank to pay for the damages I'll accrue… better to not fall and avoid finding out!_

_I'd spent the flight out here trying to figure out how a US plane carrying a top-secret experiment package strapped to a missile could go astray in the middle of these Asian badlands. Naturally, the guys who hired me didn't have a lot to say about it, and nobody on board the plane could shed any more light on the subject; they either couldn't talk about it, or they were out of the loop, like me._

_I guess I didn't need to know…_

_Doesn't stop me from wondering, though…_


	2. Coffee and Cigarettes

**Mac's Voice-over:  
** _Sometimes I wonder if the people who I work for enjoy sending me on these missions with the_ barest _minimum of information. Maybe they lay odds against my survival and gamble on my chances of success. For certain, not all of the faces in that Pentagon Situation Room were happy to see me back safe and whole… I guess they lost their bets! They_ **were** _glad to see Captain Jim Taylor alive and home again... so I'm pretty sure that I can count on getting paid for this one._

_The Boys in the Big Pointy Building don't pay out bonuses like the guys down at the DXS… but then again, I'm not a company guy; I only work for them part-time. I can't see doing what I do and working full time…it's not a healthy combination. I prefer to work on an 'as needed' basis. It gives me time for my—Other Pursuits—and it saves the government accountants endless worry over insurance coverages._

_Speaking of 'other pursuits'—I've just remembered that I have an appointment to keep!_

_So, after a cup of the bitterest coffee I've ever attempted to drink and a round of stiff, clammy handshakes, I escaped from D.C. and caught a flight of opportunity back to the West Coast on board a military transport. It's not a bad way to travel—if you don't mind sitting on a partially-assembled warhead with a cargo strap as a seatbelt. I've done worse._

_I'm just looking forward to getting home in time to catch the window._

_~~~~~  
_

"Hi, I'm Andy Colsen." Pete Thornton extended a firm handshake as he introduced himself. "I'm your new safety engineer from the Syndrex Corporation."

"Yes, I was told that you were coming." Charles Burke seemed a little less that entirely enthusiastic to receive a new employee, especially one whom he was certain was a corporate spy, but he returned Pete's handshake and led him to his new office. After showing him where to put his coat, Burke centered himself and spoke what was on his mind.

"Look, I know you're just here to do the job that you were sent here to do, but I have to say that I think that this is all really unnecessary. This accident only destroyed a small portion of Dr. Steubens' ozone research. We are planning to have his partner Dr. Marlow fly in and help him reconstruct as much of it as they can. I know that it is going to be a bit of a setback, but—"

"A bit of a setback!" Pete let himself interrupt Burke with a loud laugh; Burke's face turn slightly red. "There's no budget for setbacks like this! Whole files of data lost to a computer virus—all the notes on the launch experiments; gone! I wouldn't call it a setback… I'd call it a catastrophe!"

"It's not as bad as that," Burke answered mildly. He was angry, but he was a calm man and a cool-headed one, and he knew that something more was going on in the KIVA Foundation than a few random accidents. "I just resent not being allowed to follow this up on my own," Burke added with a note of defeat, groping absently at his shirt pocket and cursing mildly as he found his cigarette pack empty.

"I understand," Pete said, fishing a cigarette out of his pocket. It was a habit that he'd been trying to quit since his divorce. Lately he could take them or leave them, but for this undercover role as Safety Engineer Andy Colsen, he decided to cultivate the habit for the character. He shook out two, lighting both with a lighter from his pocket. "Look, there's no reason why we have to be on different sides. I'm not here to find a scapegoat… I'm here to find out what _really_ happened. And I still answer to you at the end of the day."

Burke drew on his cigarette and savored the smoke. Finally, he nodded a little and cuffed Pete on the shoulder. "All right, Colsen. We're a team. But don't forget…"

"…Who's the boss." Pete punctuated the sentence with an off-hand salute. "Right."

 **Pete's Voice-over:  
** Right. _And right after I answer to Burke at the end of each day, I will be sending out a coded message to the DXS to update them on my progress toward discovering who sabotaged those computer files and whether or not they plan on making more mischief._

_I don't enjoy lying to Charlie Burke… he is a good man…but that's the nature of this business. I am pretty sure that he'll come out of this mess without much of a stain on his reputation, but whoever he might try to protect could conceivably drag him down if he hinders my investigation too much. I hope that he'll play ball._

_I've been on missions like this before—the guys at the DXS love to send me out on this kind of job, because I'm a born bureaucrat and I have a talent for wading through red tape and paperwork. They prefer those courier missions to the South Seas, dressing up like James Bond and dodging beguiling assassins in strapless evening wear. I've had my fill of those, too, and while they can be interesting… give me a nice pile of data and a cup of strong coffee and I'm just as happy._

_I just wish I could have contacted MacGyver before I left L.A. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need his kind of help to get to the end of this one without any more 'accidents'. I'm not sure why… it's just a feeling. Call it instinct._

_An old campaigner like me learns to listen to his instincts._


	3. Puzzles and Clues

**Mac's Voice-Over:**   
_Something is bugging me. I'm sitting here in the back of this plane, rattling around with the buckles and cargo harnesses, hoping that I get home in time to pick up my Little Brother Reggie, and I just can't stop thinking…_

_I'm a Big Brother to a really great kid named Reggie, and I had made arrangements for him to come up to my place for a very special occasion that **normally** I'd really be looking forward to…but now I'm having a hard time concentrating. You know the feeling—you can't get your mind flowing in the direction you want it to go and you start missing details pertaining to the things going on around you as you start remembering the things that you should have noticed before. It was like my brain couldn't catch up with me._

_That computer guidance system that the Pentagon was so eager for me to recover—eager to the degree that they'd **left out the part** about the pilot being held captive… and **don't** tell me they didn't know, 'cause satellite photos aren't **that** selective! If they could tell me about how many Merry Mongols I could expect and where the missile would be (more or less) they **could've** mentioned something about Taylor !_

_The more I think about that—the angrier I get._

_Anyway, that isn't exactly what's eating me now. That guidance system had been special—top secret—and the missile it was in had been modified to carry an experimental package (with a charming self-destruction option!) instead of the usual ordnance. That in itself isn't uncommon, but the configuration for the dispersal—there had been something wrong with **that**. So wrong that the thing nearly went off in my face! I'd had to jury-rig a connection… and if you think my brief but well-spent life didn't flash before my eyes as those last fourteen seconds counted down, you'd be wrong!_

_Oh, yeah, that reminds me—I need to send a 'Thank You' note to that paper clip company._

_I should have asked about these things when I was talking to the boys at the Pentagon... but asking questions around that place was a little bit like rowing a boat with a pitchfork; no matter how much effort you put into it, you're not gonna get anywhere._

_So I'm sitting here, rattling and wondering as the plane slowly decelerates toward the landing strip and we are getting buffeted by the hot Red Winds coming out of the desert, and I keep turning this problem over and over in my mind like one of those crazy puzzles with all the colored squares._

_I've got a little time before I need to pick up Reggie, so I plan to grab a cab as soon as I'm on the ground and go to the one place where I can find some answers: DXS Headquarters, Los Angeles._

_I know my buddy Pete won't let me down._

~~~~~

MacGyver couldn't believe his ears. "Did you say that Pete's not here?"

Disappointment was so evident in MacGyver's manner that Helen felt a pang of sympathy for the young man. "I'm sorry…" she glanced toward the Deputy Director's office and then back toward Mac.

She didn't say anything else; Helen was scrupulous about not gossiping and especially about not leaking information, so she couldn't tell MacGyver where his friend was or when he'd be back; only the Deputy Director could do that, and he would _only_ do that if he felt that MacGyver had a 'need to know'. Colonel Barnard was a fair but serious man and Helen knew that he wouldn't regard a simple friendship as 'need to know'.

As MacGyver turned to march into the Deputy Director's office and ask questions that he would probably not get answers for, Helen suddenly remembered Pete's last words to her.

"Wait! Mr. Thornton did leave you a message..." She leaned down and retrieved something from beneath her desk. "I didn't understand at the time, but he said that I was to give you this when you came in."

MacGyver accepted the umbrella from her. He examined it all over, opening and closing it, but found no note or any other thing which resembled a message. MacGyver decided that the umbrella itself must be the message… but meaning what?

Helen watched him frowning at the thing, thinking hard. "Maybe he thought it was going to rain?" she suggested, trying to be helpful.

"In Los Angeles during the Santa Anas? I doubt it... but thanks anyway, Helen." He glanced at his watch and groaned slightly when he saw that he was going to be late. "Sheesh! I gotta go. "

Backpedaling out of the room, Mac gave Helen a parting smile that she felt on her face like sunlight. She sighed as she returned to her work. _Field agents just get younger and better-looking every day..._

~~~~~

Pete was grateful that he'd had so much time to prepare for this assignment. Everything he had learned on the long drive through the New Mexico desert was serving him well; memorizing the layout of the KIVA Laboratory had helped support his cover immensely, and now he was managing to direct safety inspections while he carried out his own covert investigation of the accident.

He knew that Burke wasn't going to cause any trouble for him because on his second day on the job, he had been handed a promotion to temporary Director of Operations and Syndrex Corporation had been handed their scapegoat, in the form of the former Director of Operations, who was asked to hand in his badge and his access card and was escorted from the premises.

Pete didn't feel good about that decision—and Burke was livid—but now more than ever someone was needed in that position... someone who could help the KIVA get back on its feet. To Burke, 'Andy Colsen' had proven in just one day that he was efficient and trustworth; Burke didn't hesitate to hand him a keycard with full security clearances.

That had made all the facets of Pete's job easier!

Pete lit a cigarette and let it smoke in his fingers, puffing on it just enough to make it look good. The thing tasted awful—he must have had that pack sitting in the bottom of his drawer for months—they were dry and stale. Still, a well-used prop was worth a thousand profiles, as his old DXS mentor used to say. He knocked ash into the small glass tray on his desk and busied himself reading what files he could find that had not been destroyed regarding Dr. Steubens' research.


	4. Nocturnal Creatures

The KIVA Labortory was located deep in the New Mexico desert on the edge of the Bannon Wilderness Area, better know to the few locals as 'Hell's other 39 1/2 acres'. There wasn't much in the way of scenery or sport for the resident scientists and personnel of the KIVA to enjoy outside of work. The nearest town was about fifty miles away, also called Bannon, and it had only a post office, a grocery store, and a gas station—all in the same building—which closed at 6:30 pm. This being the case, most of the personnel remained on-site at the lab and indulged themselves in the use of the gymnasiums or social rooms that the KIVA built into their facility. Chess tournaments were held with a regularity that approached religious zeal.

Rather than challenge a handful of quasi-geniuses with his mediocre chess skills, Pete elected to work late in his office, taking advantage of privacy to conduct his undercover investigation. It had been proving to be more difficult that he had imagined it would be; KIVA was full of curious, over-the-shoulder-looking people—especially since the incident that had destroyed Steubens' research—and finding the time and opportunity to send in reports to his superiors and receive updates had become near-impossible.

However, tonight was one of those rare nights when Pete had the Operations Office all to himself, and he had managed to make contact at last. He learned some very interesting things. Sources at the Federal level and from deep within the Syndrex Corporation had come through with flying colors, and the mystery of the missing data had turned up a few more pieces.

As Pete sat and digested the news the DXS had provided, Charlie Burke burst through the door, in as near a state of excitement as the even-tempered man had ever been in Pete's presence.

"Good news, Colsen!" Burke said, brandishing a sheaf of papers. There was a smile on his face than had chased away all the tiredness that had been building up around the man's eyes and mouth. "We've got data back from Syndrex Corporation that may help us in reconstructing Steubens' research!"

"What data? From where?" Pete took the papers and began to scan them. "This is good... an experiment package, huh? We're lucky that it wasn't destroyed when the plane crashed." The report was similar to what he had just received from the DXS, except not as detailed. Pete pretended to be taking it all in for the first time.

"That's right!" Burke leaned over Pete's shoulder as he read. "It was never launched, so there will be no new information, but the calculations from the recovered data should be helpful to our reconstruction. Based on this information, Syndrex wants Steubens to begin a new test series. We should have all the answers in just a couple of days. As soon as Dr. Marlow arrives."

"That's… great," Pete muttered absently. At Burke's puzzled stare, he added, "I mean **really** **good** news! _Where_ did they find this?" Pete asked again, leafing through the pages.

"Ah, they didn't say… top secret, I suppose. You get used to that at the KIVA, once you've been here a while." Burke gave Pete a condescending pat on the back and added, "If it had been pertinent, I'm sure they would have told us."

"Yeah. I'm sure you're right."

**Pete's Voice-Over:** **  
** _Andy Colsen would agree with Burke—but I **don't**. Someone 'upstairs' was playing a dangerous game by leaving out important details… such as the fact that this data had been retrieved because the airplane carrying the experimental launch missile had crash-landed somewhere in Asia. Of course the crash had been detected and a detachment of Mongolian Communist patriots had found the wreck (along with its erstwhile pilot), and were working with plans to remove and transport the missile to where it could be disassembled and studied. The only reason that the data had not been lost completely was because it had been recovered by a crack assault team who had risked life and limb to help the US re-obtain it._

_I couldn't believe my ears when Col. Barnard told me (what he could) about the circumstances surrounding that mission and the impromptu rescue of the pilot. Whichever screwball special–ops agents had been responsible for that wild escape… I certainly wouldn't have minded the chance to shake their hands. They sounded like real American heroes to me._

_Actually, they sounded like one particular American hero to me. I wonder where MacGyver is… it isn't hard for me to imagine that he was involved in this, somehow._

_I certainly **can't** imagine what could be so important about this research; all the data accumulated so far has involved nothing but experiments concerning the magnetic fields found in the ozone layer. Cloud seeding—or 'rain-makers' as I've heard them called—is not a new idea, and is certainly not top-secret! Granted, the drought-burdened states in the western continental states could use some relief, but I just can't understand how all this is worth the price of a man's why send an experimental package in a military plane to the other side of the world just to collect data on the upper atmosphere?_

_There has to be something more to this—something that I haven't found out yet. I need to keep digging._

_… besides, what else is there to do?_

_~~~~~  
_

"You're pulling my leg, man!"

"I am not!"

"There's no way! It's impossible to see stuff like that during the day… even a street-kid like me knows that!"

"You'll see for yourself soon enough, Short-stuff."

MacGyver steered his jeep through the furious cross-town traffic, mindful of his speed and the movements of the other drivers. Night had tried to descend over Los Angeles, but had been fought to a standstill by the streetlamps and headlights, and the smooth tall towers of steel and glass that glittered and pulsated with the life of the city. It hovered like a dark blanket above the hazy brightness, a few stubborn stars demanding the attention of the oblivious citizens below.

Reggie was in the back of the jeep, leaning as far forward as his seatbelt would permit. In the passenger side, Reggie's sister Jackie sat serenely, looking forward through the windscreen as the traffic streamed along, carrying them forward.

"I really appreciate you coming along, Jackie," MacGyver said as he guided the jeep through a tangle of exit ramps. "Are you sure you're not going to miss anything exciting by leaving the big city to hang out with your brother and me?"

"Na," Jackie drawled around her chewing gum. She worked her jaw and lips around and slowly blew a large pink bubble. She inhaled and drew it back with a quick pop. "Mom said that if I did this, I could go to the Mall next weekend."

"That's fair. Are you sure that you're not going to be bored?"

"You got a phone up in that sky-house of yours?"

"Yeah."

"Then I'll be jes' fine!" Jackie popped her gum again and shrugged. "I gotta read up for my next exam, too."

"College is demanding," Mac commented, "do you need any help studying?"

Jackie rolled her eyes toward Mac, "What do you know about geo-economics?"

"Less than I should, apparently," Mac laughed.

"Don't worry… I can call my study group." The wind of their passage whipped over the jeep and teased their hair; Jackie reached up to smooth it down without success. "You know, MacGyver, you really ought to put a top on this thing. You're destroying my 'do!"

MacGyver laughed, "Just think of it as a four-wheel-drive convertible."

Jackie rolled her eyes and chuckled.


	5. Storm Warning

Pete Thornton was an experienced field agent, and therefore he was accustomed to working in lots of different of places and doing a variety of jobs, while simultaneously (and covertly) doing his real job. Pete was very successful at this because he was good at working with people—all kinds of people.

But sometimes even Pete's experience and gregariousness could not help him get along with particularly difficult people.

People like Dr. Karl Steubens. To say that the man was difficult was a gross understatement. Pete had met him the same day that he had started his job at the KIVA. Steubens was a tall man, older in appearance than his actual years. _'He has eyes like a spaniel',_ Pete had reflected while shaking the man's cool, dry hand. Expressive, observant, and more than a little sad, as if they had seen things too terrible to be spoken of. He was polite and well-spoken. He was a brilliant scientist. But he also had coldness about him—not uncommon with other research scientists that Pete had encountered—but this chilly disposition seemed contagious, somehow; it spread out in invisible waves, leaving everyone who worked with the man depressed or edgy.

Luckily, Pete did not have to work directly with Steubens. Being a brilliant, observant man, Steubens knew that his personality did not do him well in the atmosphere of bureaucracy that was an integral part of being a successful research scientist, so he had hired a personable and charismatic assistant; a bright, friendly woman named Barbara Spencer. She effervesced where Steubens stewed; they were perfectly opposite personalities. She handled Steuben's appointments as well as his public and private correspondences, except for one: Steubens had his own Telex machine with which he sent regular messages to his friend and colleague Sidney Marlow, the text of which was always headlined with the next maneuver for their ongoing Chess tournament.

Pete decided to join Burke, who was heading down to the third level of the KIVA to present the news of the recovery of the data to Steubens. There was something 'off' about Steubens' research, and Pete wanted to observe first-hand how the news was received.

Steubens was in his lab, as always; he lived at the KIVA like many of the members of the staff, and had a modest set of rooms on the first level. He was more often found in his lab, however, either working late or musing over the chessboard in the corner of his office. That was what he was doing when Pete and Burke arrived, head bent over the board with a wrinkle of concentration bisecting his brow.

Burke was nearly bursting with excitement as he handed over hard-copies of the data that had been retrieved, but the surf of his enthusiasm crashed against Steubens' stony indifference. The scientist accepted the files without comment; by the expression on his face, he appeared more mournful and despondent than ever. He did rouse himself to thank Burke for bringing him the information, then he dismissed both men by turning his back toward them; he hadn't even acknowledged Pete. Burke shrugged and led the way out of the lab.

"Kind of excitable, isn't he?" Pete commented dryly as the elevator lifted the two men back toward the surface.

"You know how it is with scientists, Colsen," Burke said tolerantly. "Sometimes they're like little children... sometimes nothing makes them happy but a well-cultured Petri dish."

Pete nodded, but he didn't forget the incident. _'The odor of fish,'_ he privately reflected, _'was surprisingly strong out here in the desert.'_

When the elevator doors parted, the two men found themselves confronted by a simmering Barbara Spencer; her usually pleasant demeanor was completely obliterated. She stood with her clenched fists propped on her hips and glared at Burke and Pete.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded curtly.

"Um," Burke murmured, unsure of what sin he had committed and unwilling to make things worse with more words.

"What's the matter?" Pete asked cautiously.

"All of Dr. Steubens' correspondence and documentation goes through me, gentlemen… I thought that was understood. He just called me and he's very upset!"

"Ah, he seemed fine when we were talking to him a few minutes ago…"

Barbara cut Pete off sharply, her eyes flashing, "He has a lot on his mind and he doesn't need to be interrupted with petty paperwork—especially in the dead of night!"

"We thought that he would like to see that his work had not all been lost," Burke said finally, nonplussed by her violent reaction.

She had no verbal response for Burke's words; she crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one side, as if to say without saying that they were free to pass her, but she was still very angry.

Burke filed past her obediently, but Pete paused as he stepped near her. "I'll be sure not to make the same mistake again, Miss Spencer," he said placatingly.

Barbara stepped into the elevator and firmly pressed the button to close the doors without uttering another word. The heat of her fury seemed to fade slowly from the usually cool corridors of the KIVA.

"Wow." Pete turned to Burke, who was standing against the wall as if stunned. "Was that a desert storm named Spencer or what?"

Burke shook his head slowly, then reached up and massaged his aching forehead. "It's been a long day, Andy. Let's call it a night and then get started first thing in the morning on analyzing that new data. Dr. Marlow is going to arrive about 10 o'clock… we'd best have something to show him."

"Sure, Charlie," Pete agreed. "We'll get it all sorted tomorrow."

Barbara Spencer found Dr. Steubens in his office, slumped in a chair staring at the chessboard. There was a pile of paperwork in the middle of the checkered board, and chess pieces were scattered all around; some had fallen to the floor and rolled beneath the table.

"Are you all right, Dr. Steubens?" she asked gently, her hand pausing just short of touching his shoulder. "I came as soon as I could."

Steubens looked up at her and offered her a tired smile. She was probably the only resident at KIVA who had seen him smile.

"Barbara. I didn't mean for you to come all the way down here in an instant!"

"It's okay… I hadn't gone to bed when you called. What happened to your game…!" She bent to begin picking up the pieces, but Steubens stopped her.

"Never mind that, Barbara. I can pick them up. Go back to bed and get some rest. Tomorrow…" he paused and swallowed, then he gave her another faint smile, "tomorrow Sidney will be here… and all this nonsense will finally be dealt with."

Barbara was confused; that was hardly how she expected things to be. With the new data available, tomorrow would be the beginning of a very long and tedious series of program analysis and testing to verify the recovery of the research. Yet Karl Steubens seemed strangely content… almost relaxed.

When she hesitated, her concern clearly written across her face, Karl warmed up his smile a few degrees. "Trust me, Barbara. Everything will be okay after tomorrow." He stood up and took her gently by the shoulders, his touch no more than a fatherly guidance, and steered her toward the door.

"Good night… Dr. Steubens," Barbara said. Her eyes were shining with admiration as he closed the door behind her.

It was almost more than Karl Steubens could bear. Slowly, he returned to the table and straightened up the chessboard. The paperwork he gathered together and placed inside his desk, locking the drawer with a key which he slipped into his pocket. Then he took his coat from the hook behind his desk and slipped out of the KIVA without being seen by anyone other than the night security guard, who gave the scientist the keys to his Landrover and quietly pocketed the wad of cash that Steubens slipped him to make no note of his departure.

Steubens drove through the night, racing the light cast by the headlamps on the dusty truck, heading to a certain place he knew of near the border of Mexico, where he could find the things he needed to finally finish his research… once and for all. He planned to be back in his lab before the guard changed and anyone noticed he was gone.

~~~~~

Jackie had custody of MacGyver's room, while her brother and his MacGyver took their places in the living area. Reggie had bounced around inside the Observatory when they had first arrived, but the lateness of the hour caught up with the young man and he soon collapsed on the sofa with a pillow and a blanket.

Mac unrolled his sleeping bag on the floor and lay in the semi-darkness, his mind wandering lightly over the mission he had just returned from. He could hear the faint sounds from behind the closed door of his bedroom, of textbook pages turning and a voice chattering softly on the telephone. He was pleased the Jackie had gotten herself into college—against all odds—and he hoped that her headstrong little brother would follow in her footsteps.

Sometimes the assignments he accepted kept him too long out of his own country. He loved traveling and the excitement of his work, but it was easy to forget that many of the people who needed help were right next door and not across the oceans. That was the reason that MacGyver had signed up to be a Big Brother for inner-city children. He had found the experience to be more rewarding than he had imagined it could be, and in some cases, more challenging than his most difficult government assignments.

Finally he let his arm fall across his eyes and surrendered himself to sleep. The alarm was set for a ridiculously early hour, but the window for the observation was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and he didn't want to miss the show.


	6. Occlusion

Reggie closed one eye and looked up through the barrel of the telescope. His manner and language was sassy and street-smart, but he could not entirely conceal his interest in the science and equipment in MacGyver's unusual bachelor pad. "Come on, Mac! I've had Big Brothers before... none of them lived in a place like this!"

MacGyver leaned against the rail, watching the heads-up display as he made adjustments to the big telescope. "Well... it's comfy. I call it home."

"I thought you had to be real normal to be somebody's Big Brother. I mean, this aint a normal place to live... this is weird!"

"People a lot taller than your self have said the exact same thing. I think it's interesting."

"Okay, it's interesting... now can I see Venus?" Reggie turned to peer through the eyepiece of the bigger scope.

"You will be able to... once that cloud clears."

 _It's just nature,_ Mac told himself, but he was still mildly disappointed. The rabid winds of summer had died down and a few clouds had gathered during the night, threatening to obscure their viewing window. During the hours of this morning the planet Venus would be closest to earth, and the viewing of it enhanced and prolonged by a perfectly timed partial solar eclipse; a rare conjunction of opportunity. Mac had friends in the European continent who were photographing the solar eclipse for him, as they had a better view of the event from their side of the planet. Mac was photographing the presentation of Venus in return, and he was now praying that the clouds would break up before the sun rose and the eclipse began.

_There's no use in worrying about it. The clouds would part or they wouldn't… 'Nature will out,' as my dad used to say. I just hope Reggie's not too disappointed._

To Reggie, Mac said, "Tell you what, in the mean time, what do you say we go down and get a bit to eat?"

"Okay!"

 _Nothing cheers up a young man like food,_ Mac reflected with amusement. He turned and gave the offending clouds one last glare before following Reggie to the kitchen.

**Chapter 6, Occlusion**

Barbara Spencer woke with a head cold that morning. Rising from her bed with a slight groan, she made her way into the small washroom attached to her quarters and opened the mirrored door to the medicine cabinet. She found some capsules behind the toothpaste and took one, washing it down with a handful of water from the tap.

As she prepared for her day, she rehearsed the schedule that she and Dr. Steubens had discussed for Dr. Marlow's arrival. She selected a light, colorful dress and pinned her KIVA nametag over her heart. Into one pocket, she slipped the package of cold capsules and a white handkerchief.

Pausing before the small mirror by the door, she made sure that her hair was arranged and that she looked presentable. She had never met Dr. Marlow, and since he was Karl's friend she wanted to give a good first impression. Satisfied, she turned off the lights and closed the door.

Karl Steubens was already in his lab. Indeed, he had been in all through the vacant hours of morning, doing very careful and delicate work; the package was neatly concealed beneath his desk against the inside wall of the lab. He arranged a table with his finest chess set a few feet away, where the blast from the explosive could not possibly fail to kill both himself and his friend. He used the entire package of plastic explosive, to make sure that it would be over quickly.

When all was ready he went to his room to change into clean clothes, but the fresh linen and wool could not conceal the fact that he had not slept for days. He hoped that the tiredness in his eyes would be put down to over-work and dismissed. He only had to fool them for a little while.

The clock was ticking.

Danny Dobson delivered chemicals to the KIVA that morning. He wore a dark blue coverall and wheeled his handcart deftly and carefully through the corridors and into the elevator, taking the canisters down to the laboratories where their contents would be used in ways he had no desire to know. He was a delivery man, and getting stuff from 'here' to 'there' was all he cared about.

His final delivery was on the third level. He found the sign that said 'Metallurgy' and was pleased to see, through the glass walls, that there appeared to be no one in the lab. _Scientist just get in the way_ , he mused as he pushed his handcart into the rooms.

His satisfaction was short-lived, however, because when he found the area where the chemicals were supposed to be stored, he discovered that there was no room for his delivery. Cursing mildly, he looked around and saw a space nearby, back against the inner wall, that looked out –of-the-way. He quickly unloaded the canisters and stacked them neatly, turning their 'Warning! Flammable Gas!' labels out so that they could be easily seen. It wasn't code—and his supervisor would have his head on a plate if he got reported—but it was the best he could do when there was no one around to show him an alternate storage area, and he was eager to get on with the rest of his deliveries. After the KIVA, he had a long drive to Bannon to deliver some tanks to the service station, and he was hoping to find that new waitress working in the café… was her name Sally? Maybe today he'd have the nerve to ask her out for a date.

His mind on other things now that his work here was done, he whistled softly as he waited for the elevator. When the doors parted, he maneuvered his handcart inside and pushed the button for the first level.

Barbara stepped into the elevator and smiled at the young delivery man. He gave her a respectful nod, and when she turned away from him to face the doors, he covertly checked out her slender figure. Not as pretty as Sally, but she did have a nice…

They reached the first floor and Barbara headed to the control area to make sure that the State Department had sent a car to pick up Dr. Marlow at the airport.

Danny went toward the garage. He didn't look back. His work here was done.

~~~~~

Dr. Sidney Marlow sat in the back of the limousine and stared through the tinted windows. The sky was lightening in the East, throwing a weird lumination across the vast desert. The horizon seemed to stretch on endlessly. England had no such vistas, and the sun usually rose anonymously over London, hidden behind banks of clouds or screened by thick fog.

The road cut a path around invisible obstacles, weaving between cacti and mesquite bush as if plotted by a drunken man. Still, the ride was not an unpleasant one, and Marlow enjoyed the sight of the brief morning mists rising from a lonely Joshua tree to disappear in to the sky. Already in the distance the view was distorted by rising vapors, making the lands look like a drying watercolor painting.

Marlow glanced at the seat next to him where his briefcase lay. There was an umbrella there which he had carried with him all the way from London. He smiled as he looked at it; he knew before he had boarded the plane at Heathrow, that it would be unlikely in the extreme that he would need it in the heart of this American desert, but it was kind of a joke between his friend Karl and himself. They were 'the rain-makers', and carrying the umbrella was positive thinking… arming themselves for the possibility of success, as it were. He had felt the need to bring it, hopefully to lighten his friend's heart after the terrible setbacks that their research had suffered.

Marlow wondered about the change he had noticed in his friend. Karl Steubens had never been what anyone would describe as a particularly jovial or outgoing individual, but for some time now the tone of his Telex messages had been tangibly gloomy. His chess moves, always clever and cunning, had begun to show a trend toward impulsiveness. It just wasn't like Karl to take such risks…

The window that separated the driver from his passenger slowly lowered with a mechanical hum. "We'll be arriving at the KIVA in an hour and a half, doctor," the man said. "There's hot coffee in the thermos in the sidebar, if you would care for any."

"Thank you." Marlow glanced at his pocket watch and frowned, "Aren't we running rather late?"

"It's 7:26 a.m. local time, sir. We're right on schedule."

"Ah! I forget how you juggling time zones here in America… I set my watch when I arrived in the Los Angeles airport, but I forgot to turn it forward." He made an adjustment to his timepiece, then looked at it for a few seconds, wondering if he should not have left it on London time. He sighed and shook his head a little, then settled back to enjoy the view.

That was when Sidney Marlow happened to witness the most unusual sight: Morning was breaking over the desert, but the sun was curiously obscured. Marlow realized that this was an eclipse, and he reprimanded himself for forgetting that the unusual event was happening. The hollow sun rose slowly, and the night soaked into the ground like rain on the sand, leaving the Joshua tree mourning the loss of its shadow.


	7. Rook to King's Fifth

Pete was studying a computer monitor when Barbara Spencer's face suddenly appeared at his shoulder. A gentle cloud of fragrance surrounded her.

"It looks like we have a good start on the recovery," she said brightly, reading over his shoulder. "That is good news! Dr. Marlow is due to arrive any minute and I'm sure that Dr. Steubens and he will want to get started right away."

"We'll be ready for them, Barbara," Burke called to her. He had just entered the room with a sheaf of print-outs. He set these on the workstation that Pete was using.

"Andy, these are all sorted by date. I think you'll find what you need…" the telephone in the room bleated twice, and Burke interrupted himself to answer it. "Burke. Yes… no, that's not right. Check the night-shift report…. Well, check it again… never mind, I'll be right there." Burke sighed as he hung up the phone. "Dammit," he breathed softly.

"Trouble already?"

"It's probably nothing… but I need to look into it anyway." Burke glanced at his watch and frowned. "The State Department should be bringing our guest any minute now… Barbara, can I impose on you…?"

"No problem," Barbara smiled, "I was planning on meeting Dr. Marlow's car anyway. I'll give him your excuses."

"Thanks. I'll be back."

Pete swiveled around in his chair to face Spencer. "You seem very cheerful this morning."

Barbara blushed a little, but she rolled her eyes and laughed. "I woke up with a sniffle this morning, and I think my cold medicine is making me hyper!" she said lightly. "I think I owe you an apology, Mr. Colsen… for the way I snapped at you and Dr. Burke, before," she said. "I hope you can forgive me… sometimes I take my job a little too seriously."

"Only sometimes…?" Pete said, softening the jibe with a grin. "I am prepared to forget about it… if you'll call me Andy."

The phone bleated once and a voice announced over the intercom, "Sir, State Department vehicle J-1765 is requesting entry access. I have granted clearance to level one."

Pete pressed the button on the side of the phone and said, "Thank you." To Barbara, he said, "That will be Dr. Marlow's car."

"Thanks… excuse me, Mr. Colsen… I mean, Andy—I want to be in the garage when he arrives." She hurried out of the office in a swirl of skirt and fragrance.

Pete shook his head a little and turned to begin reading the heap of paperwork Burke had left him.

~~~~~

The front wall of the office of the Director of Operations was transparent, overlooking the computer lab that took up most of the first level of the KIVA. Had be been watching, Pete would have seen Barbara hesitate as one technician haled her with a clipboard and a question. She paused long enough to listen and give her advice, then a telephone rang and she excused herself.

Her mind was on other things, but she heard the technician say something about a discrepancy, and she wondered idly if it were the same problem that Burke had gone to investigate.

She could see the long black car pulling into the garage through the inner windows. Dust coated the vehicle from its long drive across the desert. Barbara paused to check her reflection in the window before entering the garage.

The chauffeur had just pulled the door of the car open and a distinguished-looking older man stepped out, clutching a briefcase and an umbrella.

' _How very… **British'**_ , thought Barbara. Out loud she said, "Dr. Marlow! Our director, Dr. Burke, was delayed, so on behalf of Dr. Steubens and the Syndrex Corporation, I'd like to welcome you to the KIVA Laboratories."

Marlow was caught off guard; the last thing he expected to see when he stepped out of the car was a bright, beautiful lady beaming a huge smile at him. He managed a polite "Thank you" without stammering, his hand automatically offering a gentlemanly greeting.

"Oh – I'm Barbara Spencer." She shook his hand warmly.

Reassured by her confidence, Marlow smiled. "Oh, yes – yes, his assistant. He's mentioned you in his letters." _'Karl left out the part about you being a lovely young woman, though,'_ he added in his thoughts.

Barbara must have seen something of his thoughts in his eyes—or perhaps it was his accent that charmed her; she suddenly blushed and diverted attention from herself. "Oh! Dr. Steubens is waiting for us down on the third level. Follow me, please – the elevators are this way." She led the way to the security kiosk where she automatically began the procedures to bring a guest into the labs. "If you'll just stand completely within this circle. This'll only take a moment."

Marlow stood in the place she indicated. As he waited, a cone of light appeared, beamed down from the ceiling directly overhead, accompanied by a deep mechanical hum. There was no sensation other than a passing fancy that made him think about an episode of an American science-fiction television program that he had once seen. When the light disappeared, Marlow stepped out of the circle and follows his guide.

Barbara pressed a few buttons on a wall panel and put her hand in the opening; a green light appeared and caressed her palm. "Spencer, Barbara T. GL 773. Clearance to Level 3." A door slid open with a hiss to reveal a pressurized elevator cabin.

Marlow was amused by all the gadgets. "Such tight security! Should I be flattered?"

"Standard procedure, I'm afraid." The humility of her words were belied by the tone of pride in her voice as she described the lab. "The KIVA has the most advanced security of all the Syndrex Corporation's." The well-rehearsed speech that Dr. Steubens and she had composed spilled from her lips with ease. "Nothing moves in or out of here that isn't constantly monitored and controlled."

As the elevator descended, Barbara continued to rattle off interesting trivia concerning the laboratory. Even though Dr. Marlow listened attentively, she got the strange impression that he was not really hearing her. Suddenly, she felt like a tour guide in a very odd theme park.

They reached the third level but were forced to wait by a red light. When the air pressure from their rapid decent had equalized, a green light appeared and the doors slid open.

The hallway leading away from the lift were lined with observation walls, revealing labs busy with activity. Barbara led the way only a short distance, through a set of glass doors, and then they were in Steubens' laboratory.

Steubens was waiting for his friend. "Sidney – dear Sidney, how are you?" He took his friend's hand and shook it warmly, smiling with delight.

"I'm great – it's good to see you, Karl!" Marlow was also delighted, but he was also a little taken-aback. _Could this be the same dour, moody Karl Steubens he had known and worked with for many years?_

"Well! Shall we start with a little tour of the facilities?" Barbara said, eager to begin.

Steubens cleared his throat; a subtle sign of dismissal to his assistant. "Eh, no, I've changed my mind about that." At Barbara's confused expression, he gave her elbow a gentle squeeze. "We have a serious matter to settle, face to face."

Steubens turned to the chessboard he had carefully reconstructed. Barbara smiled and discreetly disappeared.

"As I recall your last Telex, it was queen to bishop 4." Steubens gave his friend a challenging glance. "Yes, correct?"

Marlow laughed and relaxed. _'Business before business,'_ he thought ironically. "Uh-huh. You've countered with, um, rook to king's fifth, uh . . . pure suicide, but far be it from me to stop you, Karl."

Karl Steubens could not completely suppress his reaction to Marlow's comment, but when he laughed he managed to make it sound like an amused chuckle.

He glanced up at the clock: 10:36 am.

' _Time to kill',_ he thought dryly, and then he advanced his bishop to queen's knight four.

Each man considered his moves carefully, and the play advanced slowly as the minutes counted down on the little timer under Karl Steubens' desk. Steubens drew out his moves as long as he could, baiting his friend with both his knights. Marlow played defensively, pondering well before taking up those knights as well as two pawns, wondering what cunning strategy his friend was plotting.

"It's your move, Karl," Marlow prompted his friend, who appeared to be lost in thought.

"Oh, I – I know. " But Steubens still hesitated. Marlow studied the game.

As the second hand on the clock in the lab inched toward the top of the hour, Steubens made his last move; rook to knight four.

"I'm sorry, Sidney," Steubens said softly. He turned his head to regard the clock, bracing himself for eternity.

~~~~~

Barbara wasn't sure what to do with herself; she had planned out a tour and arranged for everything to be ready for Dr. Steubens and Dr. Marlow if they wanted to get to work immediately. She should have guessed that they'd have to have their chess game first. She walked through the hallways for a few minutes, watching the activity without really concentrating on what was going on. As she passed the Metallurgy lab, she sneezed.

' _This wretched cold!'_ she thought as she fished her handkerchief. The sharp edge of her cold capsules caught on the edge of the fabric and fell to the floor. She grumbled good-naturedly as she knelt to pick them up and stuffed them back into her pocket.

Since her office was back in Steuben's lab, she decided to head back to her quarters and wait a half an hour to give 'the boys' a chance to finish their game.

Ahead, the elevator doors were sliding shut just as she rounded the corner. Without breaking stride, she turned and pushed open the door to the stairwell, reflecting that the exercise would be good for her.

There were a lot of steps up to level two of the KIVA. By the time Barbara reached the top she had worked up a fierce thirst—due in part to the effects of her cold medicine. She was walking briskly toward the commissary, intent on getting a cup of hot tea, when the floor suddenly buckled beneath her feet.

A sound like thunder roared through the levels of the building, then the walls and floor convulsed again. Barbara threw herself down as pieces of the ceiling began to fall. She could hear cries of people in terror all around her, and she wondered that her voice wasn't one of them. She was too stunned to make a sound.


	8. The Specialist

On the first level of the KIVA, the explosion caused very little structural damage. In fact, if it were not for the computers going completely haywire, Pete might have put the soft thump and shudder down to a minor earthquake; he was used to such things in L.A.

But this wasn't L.A.—this was New Mexico, and earthquakes were virtually unheard of in this area. The voices of alarmed technicians were raised even before the sparks began to fly. The lights flickered and then died, and a fire alarm began to sound, further spreading panic among the confused people. Several minutes passed in darkness before the emergency backup generators kicked in, spreading a reddish illumination in the enclosed building.

With communications dead, Pete selected several people and sent them on foot bring back verbal reports of the status of the KIVA. He thought there might have been an explosion somewhere in the lower levels, but at first they couldn't determine exactly where it had happened. The elevator was not working, the intercom to the lower levels only gave out static, and the stairwell was caved in – there was no telling how far the collapse extended. Pete directed a few hardy technicians to begin shifting debris.

The man who had been on the security detail that morning came into Pete's office. He had a bruise on his forehead and was favoring one leg, but seemed otherwise unhurt. "Sir, by my report there are about twenty scientists checked into the lower levels this morning, including Dr. Steubens and his visitor. Everyone else was up here."

"Oh, God," Pete mumbled. "How many are hurt so far? Are you all right?"

"Just knocked myself a good one when I was trying to help dig out the stairwell. I don't think we're going to get too far… the debris keeps shifting."

"Tell them to stop until we get some help here," Pete said with a troubled sigh. "I don't want anyone else to get hurt, and there may be more damage. We won't know until we learn what caused it. I ordered a triage set up in the garage; get yourself there."

"I'm okay, sir. There are those worse off than me." The man limped out of the office.

Gus, Dr. Burke's assistant, poked his head into Pete's office a moment later. "Sir! We've managed to get through to someone on the radio. Dr. Burke has called in the Army Rescue Unit from Fort Bliss. He said to tell you that he's contacted the State Department for additional help."

"Good. I'm going to get the power on up here and get things ready for them."

"Very good, sir. Dr. Burke will be out in the comp-lab. The internal intercom system is functioning sporadically, but it came on just long enough for us to talk to one of the scientists trapped down on the third level."

"Thank God they're still alive!" Pete said. "Was it Steubens? Did he say what happened down there?"

"No, sir, it was Marlow. We couldn't make out too much of what he was saying, other than that there was some kind of explosion and that he and Dr. Steubens are trapped in the lab. Dr. Steubens is injured, but we don't know how badly."

"It's a miracle that they're not dead. Keep me posted… I should have level one on-line with full power very soon."

Gus nodded. "I'll let you know more as we learn it, sir. Just holler if you need anything."

"I could use some luck," Pete muttered to himself, "and so could those poor devils trapped below… who knows how long they can hold out."

~~~

Two hours later, things weren't looking much better for the unfortunate souls trapped below the surface. Pete had managed to return power to the KIVA, but the intercom system was still unreliable, and the rescue team from Fort Bliss hadn't arrived yet. But Holloman Air Force Base was much closer to Bannon than either White Sands or Ft. Bliss, and a division of the US Army Corp of Engineers stationed there had responded with record speed, arriving with men and equipment to grateful cheers of the KIVA survivors. They soon renewed the attempt to excavate the stairwell, but quickly desisted; there was just too much unstable debris. They decided to pull back and wait for the specialist that the State Department was trying to locate. He was flying by helicopter, but it would take some time before he arrived… if indeed he could be persuaded to come.

Army engineers do not sit on their hands very well, so they did what they could, shoring up the damage in the first level of the KIVA and tending to the injured. As soon as the equipment was shipped in by air they began to drill, hoping to increase the air supply to those who might still be alive below. Still, it felt to them as if they were doing nothing.

~~~~~

MacGyver stood on the roof-terrace of the observatory, waving to the car that was pulling out of the drive and onto the road that wound down the mountain. He could see Reggie and Jackie waving back at him through the rear window.

He was glad that they had enjoyed their time with him. The excitement of the eclipse and the viewing had made the time pass quickly. Reggie had wanted to stay through the weekend, but his mother came by to pick him and his sister up promptly at noon. Reggie managed to wring a promise from Mac that he would come and play basketball with him tomorrow afternoon.

As he watched the car disappear around the bend of the road, Mac heard the throb of helicopter blades biting the air. He turned and shielded his eyes from the glare of the regenerated sun, trying to read the markings on the sides of the 'copter.

As the blue and white craft circled the observatory and settled in the road in front of the Space Monument, MacGyver felt a prickling of excitement, tainted somewhat by a twinge of guilt that he was probably going to wind up breaking his promise to Reggie.

He turned away from the view just as the skids touched the asphalt, hastening down the stairs and out of the building before whoever was inside the helicopter had managed to wrestle the door open and climb out.

As he strode across the grass, Mac recognized Ed Gantner; an employee of the State Department and one of Mac's friends. Gantner's face was grim, and from way he was walking Mac could tell he was not altogether happy about being there, doing what he was about to do.

Mac hailed him before he managed to cross the lawn. "Tell me you were just in a hurry to see me, and there's no bad news."

Gantner stepped awkwardly around Mac, heading toward the observatory entrance. "Uhhh . . . I was just in a hurry to see you, and, uh . . . save the bad news till we get inside." He kept walking as if he didn't want Mac to come any nearer to the helicopter.

Mac stopped on the spot, stubbornly calling his friend back. "Ah, Gant – Gant… c'mon, let's have it."

Gantner sighed and reluctantly paced back to where Mac was standing. "All right. An accident in New Mexico. A lab that handles a lot of classified research. Something set off a series of explosions."

Mac frowned. "How bad?"

"Well, most of the personnel got out, but at least twenty are still unaccounted for. Among them is a top British scientist named Marlow. He was here visiting one of our own men, Steubens. They're also both candidates for the Nobel Prize this year . . . not exactly the kind of publicity the State Department wants to hear."

"They still alive?"

"They survived the blast, but they're still trapped in the lab. They calculate the chances of anyone getting through to Marlow and Steubens is . . ." Gantner hesitated, afraid to quote the odds, "…well, it's _not_ great."

"Well, give me ' _not_ great' on a scale of one to ten," Mac demanded with a touch of exasperation.

"Minus three," Gantner said bluntly. "That's why we couldn't order anyone to try. So, uh . . . your name came up."

"What other options do they have?"

Gantner said nothing, but he looked extremely uncomfortable.

MacGyver made a wry grin. "I'm it, aren't I?"

Gantner nodded. "You're it. Now look, Mac," he hastened to add, "you **don't** have to take this assignment – you _know_ that…"

MacGyver took a moment to consider, but really his mind had been made up even before the helicopter had landed. He wanted something to do… and this challenge was too great to resist.

A chill ran down his back; a surge of adrenaline called up by the promise of action. MacGyver shook himself slightly, and then he looked his friend and said, "Call the lab, Gant. Tell 'em we're on our way."


	9. Dressing for Danger 101

**Mac's Voice-Over:  
** _And now for a lesson from Professor MacGyver in_ Dressing for Danger 101; _Start out with a long sleeve shirt of a light but strong material, preferably cotton, and a pair of sturdy pants. I like the cargo pockets…gives me lots of places to put useful things that a guy might need. Add a flannel over-shirt—I've lived in California for several years now, but I still haven't shaken the habit of layering… blame it on Minnesota!_

_Let's see… I'll need a good pair of shoes… no telling what I'm going to have to walk through or climb over. And a jacket—it'll be warm enough in New Mexico, but I can expect a drafty ride in some military helicopter before I get there._

_Now the pockets: let's take some matches… duct tape in the back pocket—you never know when that will be useful—oh, and don't forget the trusty old Swiss Army pocket knife. Now I feel ready for anything!_

_Time is of the essence, but it only takes one more moment to look around for something else that might be useful. I spot my game bag hanging on the closet doorknob, so I grab it up and sling it over my shoulder. Something heavy bumps into my spine as I dash up the stairs, and I realize that my binoculars are still in there from my last mission… but that's okay; no time to unpack them now; there are people who needed help and Gantner is waiting in the 'copter._

Ed Gantner was indeed waiting, anxiously shifting from one foot to the other in the shadow of the Space Monument. His wristwatch told him that MacGyver had only been inside for ten minutes, but it seemed more like an hour, and when he did appear—walking swiftly across the springy lawn in front of the Observatory—it seemed as if his every move was in slow motion.

Gantner was trying to resist the urge to pace. He was trained to handle emergencies like this, but the incidents at the KIVA were pushing his ability to remain detached to the limit; a multimillion dollar lab facility chock-full of government research projects destroyed… an unknown number of lives lost… TWO Noble Prize-nominated scientists missing or dead—one of whom he was personally responsible to keep safe while he was visiting the U.S. –All of these things were adding up to make Ed Gantner one very unhappy and nervous person.

But it wasn't really his career that Gantner was worried about now; it was MacGyver that concerned him the most. He had just had to ask a friend to dive into the middle of all this… and he knew MacGyver well enough to know that he would try to help no matter how the odds were stacked against him.

Gantner had known MacGyver for a few of years; they had met during a joint mission between the State Department and the DXS, when Mac had recently been recruited. Gantner had expected MacGyver to just get in the way, like any other raw recruit. But as it turned out, MacGyver wound up saving the day—and Gantner had wound up owing him his life.

He _hated_ to put MacGyver in this situation; it seemed a poor way to repay the debt of life that he felt existed between them—but his superiors had ordered him to enlist Mac's help. Brainstorming had been going on in the State Department Building, everyone trying to figure out what to do to save the research that had cost them so many millions of tax-payer dollars. When General so-and-so from the Pentagon had said something about MacGyver's work in Asia , that had convinced everyone that he was the only one man who could possibly help.

But MacGyver was more than an agent or an operative to Ed Gantner… he was a _friend_.

MacGyver seemed to read something of Gantner's concern in his expression. MacGyver slapped him on the shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile. "Come on, Gant! Let's _**do**_ this thing!" He sounded as jaunty and cheerful as if he was on his way to a hockey scrimmage.

"Mac, are you _sure_ you want to…?" but MacGyver was already climbing into the chopper, shouting a greeting to the pilots over the sound of the idling rotors, a look of boyish excitement lighting his face. Gantner followed him numbly.

The helicopter lifted and turned, cutting the air like an arrow toward a nearby private airstrip.

The flight was over in a matter of minutes and when they landed, there was a young officer waiting beside the landing pad. She saluted the two men sharply and handed a shipping tube to Gantner, then pointed to a Cessna corporate jet that was waiting on the tarmac.

"General Hawkins' compliments, gentlemen! Our pilot has orders to bring you to Holloman AFB, where you will be taken by transport helicopter to the site. Those are the documents which you requested, sir." She hustled both men toward the plane.

"Thank you." Gantner passed the tube to MacGyver, "You might find these useful, Mac."

MacGyver looked at the 'Top Secret: Eyes Only' seal on the tube and said, "Good thinking, Gant… good to have friends in High Places!"

Gantner frowned. "It's the least we can do… considering what you're about to risk…"

MacGyver seemed not to hear the pessimism in Gantner's voice. As soon as they were aboard the jet, he settled into a seat next to a sturdy table. Ignoring both the opulence of the décor and the fully-stocked wet bar, he buckled himself in and unrolled the blueprints and schematic graphs of the KIVA Laboratory.

Once the jet was airborn, Gantner got up and went to the bar. He poured two glasses of iced ginger ale, resisting an urge to lace his own with something stronger. He set one of the glasses beside Mac, and then spent half an hour watching the ice melt as his friend poured over the graphs and make notes in the margins with a pencil.

"Exactly what kinds of research do they do at this place?" MacGyver asked suddenly, startling Gantner out of an unscheduled doze.

Gantner blinked guiltily; he hadn't meant to sleep. "I-I can't tell you, Mac."

Mac raised an eyebrow and frowned. "Can't… or _**won't?**_ "

"I honestly don't know," Gantner said. "It's top-top secret stuff. All I can say for sure is that the Army and the Air Force both have close ties with this facility, as well as the British Foundation for Energy Research. That's where Sidney Marlow works. And **he** is the reason that I was able to get these graphs… you wouldn't believe the kind of strings I had to pull!" Gantner shook his head.

"Yes I would," MacGyver said wryly. "They don't happen to be serving lunch on this flight, are they?" he asked with a twinkle in his eye.

"Sorry, Mac! There's only the bar… no food. I might be able to find some peanuts or something…"

"Never mind… this will have to do," Mac said, and he drank down the ginger-ale. He dried his hands carefully before he continued to handle the papers.

~~~~~

Pete sighed as he lit another cigarette; it was easy to forget that he had quit smoking—especially under the stressful conditions of the ruined KIVA. He began to reread all the data that he'd received, trying to make heads-or-tails of the confused tangle of code that the limping computers were finally dispersing. He was interrupted when Burke appeared in the doorway, looking more harassed than ever.

Before Pete could even formulate a question, Burke said, "Bad news, Colsen. They had to stop drilling."

"Why? There could be survivors that we haven't contacted! Steubens and Marlow are still…"

"They hit acid," Burke said bitterly, kicking the bottom of a cabinet lightly to vent his frustration; an unusual demonstration of temper for Burke. "Hydrochloric acid… probably the explosion ruptured the big tank we have down on Three…" Burke stopped speaking and closed his eyes. Pete recognized that he was trying to get his emotions in check; he waited patently for Burke to continue.

After a moment, Burke spoke again as if he had not paused. "If the acid is leaking out, then we have to consider getting control of that as our top priority. I don't want to abandon the people who are trapped below… but we have to be realistic and consider that acid as a potential risk for the environmental health of the area… hundreds of people may be harmed."

Pete wasn't sure what to say; this was grim news indeed. Burke spared him the need to compose a statement by saying firmly, "Andy, I need you to stay on top of things in here. We've got to do everything to try to get Marlow and Steubens out."

"How?" Pete asked, unable to keep the sound of his own frustration out of his voice.

"The State Department has found some lunatic who has volunteered to try to get into the lower levels and affect a rescue attempt, and they are flying him in now. I want you to find a way to get him inside. Go over every detail of the schematics! I want to know every vent, access tunnel, air shaft, nook, cranny, and rat hole in this complex-whoever this screwball is, he's going to need every ounce of help we can provide!

"I've got to go and supervise the removal of the KIVA's central processing data before we loose it all… and try to get Marlow or Steubens back on the intercom."

"What about the acid?" Pete asked.

Burke shook his head. "The Army's working on that question… and I'm sure we're not going to like the answer."


	10. Ant Farm

**Mac's Voice-over:**   
_I don't think I've ever traveled anywhere faster than I traveled from L.A. to Bannon, New Mexico. I spent as much time as I could going over the layout of the underground laboratory, but when we arrived at Holloman AFB and transferred to the helicopter, there was no more time; the craft zipped toward the lab at top speed, and I had to keep the fragile sheaf of papers in their protective tube or the wind would have shredded them._

_As we came in over the desert, I saw a lot of military vehicles and a couple of large tents. There were people swarming all around the place; it looked like an ant hill that had been kicked over by an ornery child. I saw drilling equipment, but there was no exhaust coming from the great engine, and the engineers were standing around with their hands on their hips. It's hard to tell from a couple of hundred feet, but they looked stumped to me._

_I guess whatever they were doing, it_ _**wasn't** _ _going well._

_Gant's got a strange look on his face—somewhere between worry and fury. I know he feels bad about calling me in on this… but what choice did he have, really?_

Gantner jumped slightly when MacGyver tapped a finger on his headset. He fumbled for a second to turn on the radio so he could hear Mac's voice, but there was something wrong with the receiver. He pointed to his ears and shrugged.

Mac lifted the cuffs from Gantner's ear and shouted, "Wha'cha doing next weekend, Gant?"

Gantner shook his head; he either didn't hear Mac right or he didn't understand. Mac shouted again, "If I pull this thing off, I want a favor in return!"

"Anything!" Gantner shouted back. "What do you want?"

Mac mimed dribbling a ball and shooting a basket. Gantner's eyebrows rose toward his hairline. He pointed at himself. "You want **me** to play basketball?"

"With my Little Brother!" Mac called back. "You," Mac pointed at Gantner, then himself, "me—and Reggie—on the courts—Three Man Out!"

"Mac!" Gantner shook his head, crossing his hands as if calling 'time out', "I'm no good… I can't!"

"You gotta!" Mac leveled a finger at him. "You OWE me!"

Gantner sighed and muttered something that Mac understood clearly even though he couldn't hear a syllable. Mac grinned madly and buffeted Gantner on the shoulder. Gantner rocked with the motion, unable to keep the grin off of his own face.

~~~~~

Barbara was awake long before she opened her eyes and uncurled herself from where she had huddled on the floor. A part of her was stunned—petrified. She was afraid that if she thought about anything too much, she would realize that she was dead… or worse: buried alive.

She did finally sit up and take stock of herself. The corridor she had been walking down was dark, and pieces of the walls and ceiling were lying around indecently on the once-hygienically clean floor. The air was thick with smoke or dust—Barbara wasn't ready to think about fires, yet; burning to death was right up there with 'being buried alive' on her list of 'Things I Don't Ever Want To Do'.

Climbing unsteadily to her feet, she looked around. The elevator was a few feet away, past a vending machine that had toppled and shattered, its sugary contents scattered across the floor. She walked around the mess and pressed the button several times to call the elevator... to no effect. She turned around, unsure of what to do or where to go. Then she remembered that she had been on her way to the commissary when the sky fell. She picked her way down the hall, leaning against the wall to steady herself.

The door to the commissary was hanging half off of its hinges. Barbara looked through the gap to see if there was anyone inside. She turned away swiftly, covering her mouth in horror. The ceiling had completely collapsed, and from beneath the pile of rubble Barbara could see someone's feet, a woman's—still clad in stylish pumps. Barbara forced herself to push aside the door and check to see if there was anyone else in the room who might have survived. She found no one.

She stood for a moment, staring at the unfortunate woman's feet. Who had she been? She didn't recognize the shoes, nor could she think clearly enough to guess who might have been in the commissary at this hour. Barbara knelt and gently removed one shoe, hoping that it could be used to identify the victim if she managed to get herself out.

The urge to escape from this tomb hit Barbara hard, with all the adrenaline that panic can provide. She had to steady herself against the wall again, but this time to prevent herself from sprinting across the littered floor, searching for an exit. It wouldn't do to sprain an ankle or fall through a hole in the floor!

Breathing deeply, Barbara leaned against the wall and tried to think of the best way out. With no elevator, the stairs would serve to get through the sublevels to the main biology lab. From there, an emergency stairwell climbed to the first level.

Clutching the shoe in one hand, she resolutely set out. She found the stairwell, the steps littered with fractured concrete and dirt, but passable. She climbed steadily, thinking with sudden hope that she might be able to get all the way to the surface, but after a long breathless scramble she was disappointed. The upper flights of the stairwell were clogged with debris from where one wall had collapsed; she had to backtrack to find an exit, which deposited her in one of the access corridors below the bio lab.

From there, she picked her way in the semi-darkness, dodging broken electrical lines and piles of shattered glass. With the elevators out and the stairwell blocked, there was only one other access that she knew of—a maintenance ladder reached up through the sublevels, designed to provide access to the heating and air conditioning vents of the various levels and sublevels. The ladder was fifty feet high at a stretch, made out of reinforced steel and braced. She prayed that it was still intact.

As she was making her way to the maintenance area when she heard somebody cough. She turned around, trying to locate the direction it was coming from.

"Hello?" She called tentatively.

"Who's there?" A man stumbled through a doorway ahead, looking around vaguely. He was a tall, thin fellow in a lab coat, one of the staff scientists; Barbara thought she recognized him but she couldn't remember his name.

"Spencer—Barbara Spencer. Are you all right?" The man's face was streaming with blood, and one of the sleeves of his coat was ripped.

"I'm alive… I guess that's something." He squinted at Barbara. "I lost my glasses when… what happened?"

"I'm not sure. An explosion, I think," Barbara said. Just being with a living, breathing person made her feel better—a little more in control. "You're bleeding…"

"Oh." The man prodded the wound on his cheek with insensitive fingers. "Ouch. You're the first person I've seen since… the first person alive, that is." The man swallowed convulsively. He fumbled in his pocket for a linen handkerchief, dropping it in the process. Barbara picked it up and shook it out.

"Yeah." Barbara didn't elaborate; she didn't need to. "What's your name?" She folded the cloth into a bandage.

"Dobbson. I was in the bio lab and had to come down to the storage room for some baseline solution… " He stopped talking, wincing as Barbara pressed the bandage to his face. "I lost my glasses—I'm blind as a bat without them."

"Well, I'm on my way up and out of here," Barbara said, forcing some cheer into her words. She took one of his hands and placed it over the bandage. "Now hold this in place, and put your other hand on my shoulder."

"The elevators are out of service," he mumbled as they began to move forward slowly.

"I know. We're going up a different way."

"Sounds good. Th-thank you. For helping me."

Barbara couldn't think of what to say to that. She led the way firmly, going slow and steady, drawing strength from the dependent touch of Dobbson's hand.

Barbara and Dobbson found the service shaft as undamaged as fortune would allow. She told Dobbson to start up the ladder, but he demurred.

"Ladies first. That way, if I slip and fall off, I won't take you with me." When she hesitated, he smiled and patted her shoulder. "Don't worry… I'll be right behind you. I won't let you out of my sight, and considering that I can barely see—I shall be very close indeed!"

They began to climb. Barbara had thrust the woman's shoe into the belt of her dress so that she could use both hands; she needed them. The going was not easy, and all the bruises and bumps she had not felt before were now singing loudly under her skin. She ignored the discomfort and went on.

"You okay down there, Dobbson?" she called after a few dozen feet. She didn't really want to look down, but she did.

Dobbson tilted his face up, a rakish grin on his face. "I'm fine… but I do wish I had my glasses."

"I'm glad that you don't," Barbara quipped, "you'd be looking up my skirt right now if you did!"

"Oh… my." Dobbson blushed a little as he laughed. "I **am** cursed!"

At the top of the ladder – the highest sublevel of Level Two – the lights were flickering but at least they were on. Although there were some signs of damage, it was nothing like what they had seen so far. Hope rose again in Barbara's heart that they had found a way out. She took Dobbson's hand in hers and walked them cautiously toward the bio lab.

There were voices ahead – real, living, human voices – and Barbara let out a sigh as they turned a corner. Down the hallway past the elevator was the bio lab, and Barbara could see a group of people standing there. A part of her realized that this likely meant that they had found no way to the surface, but she couldn't shake the elation she felt at finding more survivors. She took Dobbson's elbow and hurried him forward.

Just as they started down the hallway, there came an alarming groaning sound from the walls and ceiling. Barbara shouted and broke into a run, dragging Dobbson with her as the ceiling began to sag and the wall buckled, then rained down an avalanche of dirt and debris, completely clogging the hallway, and effectively sealing the survivors inside the lab.

Barbara didn't stop running until she reached the safety of a solid wall. She released Dobbson and let herself sink down until she was sitting on the floor. She suddenly realized that the shoe that she had brought so far with her was gone, dropped somewhere along the way.

She decided it was time to let herself cry.


	11. The Screwball

"At this time there is no other option," Keele's voice was as inflexible as his posture and as cold as the silver birds shining on his collar. He handed Burke a sheet of paper with an official-looking seal embossed into the letterhead. "The tankers are on their way and will be here in approximately five and a half hours."

"That will destroy everything!" Burke objected, "as well as killing any survivors trapped by the collapsed stairwell! Sodium hydroxide _**can't**_ be the only solution. We could use – "

"It's the only solution we can arrange quickly enough," Keele interrupted firmly. "My duty is to prevent that acid from reaching the Rio Grande ." Keele turned toward Pete, who had been listening and suppressing the urge to shout down both men. "Back me up, Colsen ... _**are**_ there any other options?"

Pete didn't know what to say; the NaOH had been his own suggestion – sent in covertly through the Federal Department to the Army so that his undercover identity would not be revealed. But before he could speak to deny or agree with the colonel, Burke interrupted him:

"We have someone coming to help ... he's due to arrive any second now! He might be able to do something from the inside if we give him enough time ... "

Pete was taken aback. "You can't _**still**_ seriously be considering sending that guy down ... the lower levels of the KIVA are a death-trap!" Pete gestured toward the ruin of the stairwell, where all excavation attempts had been driven back in failure. "Charlie, I'm sorry ... but nobody is coming up out of there alive, and only an insane man would try to go down there now – even **if** he can find a way in!"

"It might not be as bad as all that," Burke argued. "The generators on the Third Level are still operating – that's where we're drawing power from now. I take that as an indication that Steubens and Marlow could still be alive – the most sever damage must be on the Second Level. There's a chance that they can be reached – there has to be some kind of access! We have to try!"

Colonel Keele regarded Burke evenly. "I have my orders, Director." Then he turned on his polished heel and strode out of the command center.

Burke wadded up the paper containing the memo from Washington declaring the doom of the KIVA and threw it after him weakly, muttering something that sounded to Pete like "Stiff-necked jarhead!"

"When you sent for this man," Pete said softly, "our timetable was based on air supply." Pete regarded the wall clock solemnly. "That has been cut almost in half now. If he gets here in the next quarter hour he'll only have about 5 hours – until the tankers arrive. We've got to start pumping that sodium hydroxide in as soon as they get here ... the ecological impact could be catastrophic, otherwise."

"All right." Burke said grimly. "This guy will have to do what he can do in 5 hours ... Gus, get me the paperwork on the expert that Gantner is bringing in."

But Gus didn't hear his request; he had one hand clamping a headset to his ear and was excitedly turning dials and knobs on a console with the other. "Dr. Burke! I think we may be getting through again!"

Burke grabbed the handset and pressed it to his ear. "Dr. Marlow? Dr. Steubens? Gentlemen, can you hear me?"

A long moment passed before a response stuttered from the speaker. "Yes, just-just a little. I-I-I think K-K-Karl is – regaining consciousness, but he's-we do need a doctor down here –" The green lights on the console faded to red as the weak voice was overtaken by static.

Burke plugged his free ear with a finger. "Dr. Marlow? Hello?"

"Sorry, sir, we lost him," Gus announced grimly.

Burke thrust the receiver into his hands. "Keep trying!" He turned to Pete. "Any chance that we have to get them out alive, Colsen, we're going to try! And if Gantner's expert is willing to go down there, then I'm not going to try to talk him out of it!" Burke leveled a glare at Pete. "And neither are you!"

~~~~~

**Mac's Voice-Over:**   
_I'd been glad of the warmth of my flannel shirt and jacket as we whipped through the air toward Bannon, but the helicopter hadn't even settled onto the dusty ground before I was longing to rip them off. The heat of the desert reached up to catch us, and sweat was already soaking into the band of my baseball cap and starting to trickle down my back as I released the catch on my safety harness. The huge blades of the helicopter spun down as we waited, uncomfortably, for our military escort. Gant sat chewing on his lip until at last a man came running up, one hand holding his helmet in place as he jogged toward us._

_Gant bailed out first, grabbing the soldier's hand. I saw birds on the collar of his fatigues, but I missed reading the name printed on his breast pocket. If our military escort was a full colonel, then security was indeed still tight around this lab. I wondered how much red tape I was going to have to tunnel through before I actually got inside. Hopefully, Gant would be able to cut through the worst of it for me._

_I grabbed my gamebag and stuck my head under the strap and followed them. It felt good to stretch my legs after being in the cramped helicopter, in spite of the oppressive heat._

_From the outside, the KIVA Laboratories did not seem very impressive. In fact, it looked like an old radio station, abandoned and left to be swallowed by the desert. The colonel led us through the hustle of EMS people and soldiers, helping bruised and battered people into the fleet of ambulances that were squatting around the place, lights flashing with insistent impotency. Most of the injuries seemed to be superficial, but there were some in quite serious condition. I spotted one man who had a wicked burn on his arm – most likely electrical but I couldn't be sure without asking the paramedic – but our guide didn't slow down so I didn't have time._

_The brief walk to the lab left me sweating heavily; I took my cap off and shoved it into my bag. But as we stepped between the guards through the door that led into the complex, it felt like I'd walked face-first into a deep-freeze. Instantly the skin on my arms and legs were covered with goose bumps, and the sweat dripping down my back became an icicle. I decided to keep my jacket on for the time being!_

_On the blueprints this area had been described as a garage, but it was now a triage, filled with the victims of this disaster. Off to one side, with a single soldier standing guard, were several sad figures draped with white sheets._

_Suddenly, the cold I was feeling didn't have anything to do with the A.C. I forced myself to keep moving._

The garage area and the main computer control room beyond it were aswarm with people. Colonel Keele cut through the human tide like a knife, followed closely by Gantner. A team of firefighters rushed past; Mac fell back and let them pass while the other men went on ahead into the computer lab. Mac used the time to look around and get his bearings.

Most of the damage on this level seemed to have been done to the computers; overloads had blown out several panels, and there men and women were working diligently – some desperately – to coax information from the crippled systems. The indicator lights on many of the computers were flashing red or not working at all. As Mac watched, a pair of soldiers entered the computer lab and rounded up a few techs that had been unable to revive their stations, insisting firmly that they join the evacuation.

**Mac's Voice-over continues:**   
_Either they had had a lot of people to evacuate, or they were only just getting started. It made me wonder – oh yes it did – about what had changed since I had initially been briefed._

_Oh, well… I hadn't really expected it to be too easy …_

_As the people filed out, I received a mixture of stares; hopeful, confused, resentful – and one of pity that made my stomach twist._

_Something kicked over in my mind and right then! – my fear and doubt evaporated. I had a job to do – lives that depended on me. I was determined to see this through._

_A feeling of excitement and anticipation spread through me, driving away the last of my chill; I readjusted the strap across my shoulder and pushed through the stream of people to where Gant and the colonel were waiting._

Over the susurrus murmur of people, a woman's voice broadcast over the loudspeaker, demanding attention with the stilted tones of computer urgency. Mac was still looking around, comparing what he saw with his mental notes of the layout of the laboratory. Ahead of him, Gantner and Colonel Keele were speaking to a harried-looking man whose dark hair looked as if it had acquired shots of grey within the last few hours. Mac couldn't quite hear what he was saying, but his body language made it clear that he and the colonel were not friends.

Then Mac saw something ... or rather, someone … that nearly made him stop dead in his tracks. Through a glass partition, he could see into another smaller office, raised a few feet above the floor of the computer lab. A familiar balding head was bent over a computer: Pete Thornton – in the flesh – right in the thick of things, as usual!

MacGyver felt his jaw drop open, but before he could utter any words of surprise he was jostled by a technician who couldn't see over her armload of files. Mac steadied her with a hand on her arm. When he looked up again, he saw Pete looking straight back at him through the glass.

Pete didn't look surprised to see MacGyver. He looked furious. As Mac watched, Pete took a cigarette out of his pocket and placed it in his mouth. With unnecessary force he struck a lighter, lit the cigarette. But instead of letting the lighter die, he took the cigarette out of his mouth and blew out the flame – like a birthday candle. Then he turned away before anyone else noticed.

MacGyver took a deep breath and continued forward to catch up with Gantner and Keele. No one in the busy room had noticed the wordless exchange between the two men.

**Mac's Voice-over:**   
_My mind_ _was_ _racing like crazy ... which I think would be normal under any circumstances, but_ _seeing_ _my friend Pete Thornton here – it kind of solidified my suspicion that there was something going on here below the surface of things. No pun intended._

_What was Pete trying to tell me? He knew I wouldn't blow his cover,_ _whatever it was,_ _but I could tell he wasn't overjoyed to see me here, at this time._

_My pulse was racing as fast as my mind now. I still had a job to do ... and by the look of things, it was going to be dangerous._

_As dangerous as any crazy kid from Minnesota could hope._

Mac caught up with Gantner and Keele just as the colonel said, "I better keep things moving outside. I'll check in with you later."

Burke gave a curt nod and said, "Good." Mac wondered if it was supposed to convey approval of Keele's vigilance, or relief at the man's absence from Burke's immediate presence.

Gantner performed introductions. "Charlie Burke, this is MacGyver. Charlie's director of the lab," he added as Mac leaned forward and shook Burke's hand.

This time, Burke's relief was genuine. "Thank you for coming."

Mac's eyes were drawn to the rows of indicator lights flashing upon the various computer terminals. The unit that Burke was standing beside appeared to be in the best repair of all the others. From where he stood, he could see that it was monitoring the lower levels with a row of dials, showing power readings, pressure, heat, and oxygen. Level Two seemed to be in the most trouble; the dials were mostly laid over in the red.

Glancing around to soak up as much information as he could – and deliberately not looking toward the booth where Pete was working – MacGyver asked, "How's it stand right now?"

"Well, Marlow's fine; Steubens was unconscious for a while, but he's coming around, and we've been unable to maintain any communication for more than two seconds at a time." Burke's voice delivered this news in a flat-businesslike rush. He was watching MacGyver closely, wondering if the man was actually paying attention to him. Would he refuse to attempt the rescue, or was he simply too distracted to realize how much danger he was placing himself in? He looked young and tough, physically able to face a challenge of this magnitude, but mentally – ? The jury was still out, Burke decided.

"You got any idea what set it off?"

"An explosion on the Third Level somehow made its way to the First, but past that, we're guessing."

"Any chance it could have had anything to do with their research?" MacGyver asked matter-of-factly.

"No, no, no no no…" Burke was quickly dismissive of the suggestion. "Steuben's research had to do with magnetic fields in the ozone layer."

Mac perked up as he heard this. "Rainmakers?" he asked, thinking back on the 'message' that Pete had left for him.

"Yup."

 _Umbrella, huh, Pete? Clever old son of a gun ..._ MacGyver kept his thoughts off of his face and asked, "You _**sure**_ this was an accident, right?"

Burke gave his answer with a touch of heat. "Given the security of the KIVA laboratories, I don't see how it could be anything else."

" _Yeah_ , _right_ ," MacGyver breathed softly. "Ah, you got somebody I can talk specifics with?" He waved the roll of schematics he had tucked under his arm.

"Andy Colsen is our Chief of Operations," Burke answered.

"Awright, let's have him!" Mac announced with a touch of gung-ho. "That ten hours can't be gettin' any longer." He turned and began to unroll the sheaf of papers on a table.

Burke hastily cleared more space for him, before papers and objects could be shoved onto the floor. "Get Colsen down here." Gus nodded and hurried off. "Now, we started to drill an air hole from the outside, but we had to stop."

Gantner frowned up from the drawings. "Why's that?"

"We hit sulfuric acid." The look on Burke's face showed clearly that he wished he didn't have such bad news to report. He was afraid that he was going to inadvertently talk MacGyver out of the rescue attempt. "The explosion must have ruptured one of the tanks, and that's – well, it's – it's leaking into the ground."

"Has it reached the aquifer yet?" Mac asked quickly.

Gantner had no clue what the men were talking about. "Whoa, whoa – what's – "

Burke explained patiently, "The aquifer – it's a layer of underground water – in this case, it leads into the Rio Grande. Now, if the acid hits the river, we're going to poison most of this state, Texas, and Mexico."

"What can you do about it?"

"Well, we can neutralize it – but in order to do that, we have to flood the entire complex with sodium hydroxide."

Gantner frowned again. "What's that?"

Mac, his face sober from what he was learning, said quietly to his friend, "Let's just say that it's the same stuff they use to clean the flesh off of skeletons."

"You're kidding." Mac shook his head slightly. To Burke, Gantner said, "Is that true?"

"Yeah. There's a convoy of tankers on the way right now."

Mac turned and gave Burke a pointed look. "So it's _**not**_ ten hours any more."

Burked glanced up at the clock. "No – ah, given the rate of flow of the acid, I'd say you have a little under five hours, my friend," he said bluntly.

"Why, you're just taking all the fun outta this, Charlie." Gantner gaped at him, but Mac ignored him. He drew Burke's attention back to the drawings. "Can you show me where that tank is?"

Burke was relieved that MacGyver hadn't run screaming out of the KIVA. He indicated a spot on the schematic drawing. "Right there. Third level – 300 feet below ground."

Mac felt a familiar presence. He turned in time to see Pete ambling toward him, lighting a fresh cigarette. _Of all the people in this place ... could it be…?_ Mac felt a smile growing up inside. "You Colsen?" _If Pete_ **is** _'Colsen', then things are better for me than I'd hoped._

Pete took the cigarette out of his mouth to say, "That's right. You must be the screwball."

Mac's smile broke across his face; he couldn't help it.

Burke misread the situation, luckily. He admonished his Chief of Operations with a gentle, "Andy, c'mon."

MacGvyer recovered himself quickly, though he couldn't quite wipe his expression of relief entirely away.

Still grinning, Mac turned back to Burke and the schematics. "It doesn't make much sense to go over every level right now. If you can wire me for two-way, you can fill me in as I get to each one. First problem, though, is to get me inside." Mac dragged his glance from Gantner to Burke, then he swung and spoke directly to 'Colsen.' "You got any ideas on that?"

"The only way to get down to the First Level is through the elevator, and we can't even open the doors up here. The whole shaft is protected by laser." The whole of Pete's bearing and voice communicated his displeasure and reluctance in sending his friend down into a hell-pit.

"Infrared or gas-discharged?" Mac expressed only curiosity in his voice, but the sobriety and negativity that had gripped him before seemed now to have evaporated – in a puff of cigarette smoke. With Pete on his side, Mac knew his chances of success had increased exponentially.

Pete regarded him levelly, his own expression geared to conveying to everyone in the room that he thought that he was talking to a lunatic. "Gas. CO2. Ten thousand watts."

Mac let out a whistle and winced. "You boys take your elevator shafts pretty seriously." He paused, his eyes caught by something in Pete's shirt pocket. "Spare a cigarette?"

"Oh, sure." Pete took the pack out of his pocket and tapped them loose to offer one to MacGyver. _A_ _last cigarette for a condemned man_ , he thought morosely.

Mac closed his hand around the pack and took it from Pete's hand, slipping them inside his bag. "Thank you."

Pete regarded him with annoyance. "Take the pack, why don't you? Want my lighter, too?"

"No, thanks ... I carry my own matches," Mac replied absently, already refocused on the plans. Burke and Gantner had been watching the demonstration; Burke turned back to work with a wry grin on his face. "Now, this wiring duct here – it looks like it runs into the elevator shaft. Does it?"

"Yeah, it does. And it's got a grate on the opening; but that's not gonna do you any good. You're still gonna draw the laser there."

"That's what I'm countin' on. Can you get me inside?"

Pete stared at Mac, wondering at the man's nonchalance. "You know, you're not gonna be able to _**see**_ that laser!"

"Can you?" Mac repeated, a hint of a challenge in his voice.

Pete began to nod. This _**was**_ MacGyver he was talking to ... he should have known he would not be easily dissuaded. "Yeah, I can get you in. You know, it's gonna take a lot more than you can carry in that knapsack to get you through _**all**_ _ **this**_ " Pete indicated the plans spread before them with a wave, cigarette smoking in his fingers.

"Well, the bag's not for what I take, Colsen –" Mac responded confidently, " – it's for what I find along the way." Mac took one last look at the plans and permitted himself another grin.

**Pete's Voice-over:**   
_I can't imagine what he thinks he's got to smile about._

_I thought I was going to have a heart-attack when I saw him, rolls of paper tucked under one arm, a knapsack strung over his shoulder like he was a Boy Scout going for a hike … sometimes I think that MacGyver has more than a few screws loose._

_I mean – just look around! This building is in ruins, half of the systems don't work, the power is running on habit – and he's standing here, grinning like fool as I'm telling him that there is no possible way in … which to any_ normal _person should suggest that there is also no possible way out._

_But I've always known that MacGyver wasn't normal._

_And I'm standing here watching him, pretending not to know him… pretending not to be preparing to send my good friend down to his likely death. The odds are against those people down there, against MacGyver, against time. It is an impossible task. It is a hopeless task._

_And I know that it is equally impossible and hopeless to try to talk him out of trying._

_I guess the best I can do is help him get through, and trust Mac to keep himself alive._

_I'll tell you frankly, though … if I wasn't already bald, MacGyver would make me go gray!_


	12. Down the Rabbit Hole

Gantner had a solemn look on his face as he handed MacGyver a two-way radio and watched as the man clipped it to his belt. "It's not too late," he insisted, braving a withering glare from Burke to add, "you don't have to go down there. We'd all understand if you changed your mind—"

MacGyver clapped him on the shoulder, and then applied gentle pressure to encourage Gantner forward so that they could follow their guides. "I've come all this way, Gant… the least I can do is take a closer look at things before I consider backing out."

"You don't fool me, Mac," Gantner said dryly. "You **have** taken a closer look… and you have no intention of backing out."

MacGyver chuckled. "I've got no intention of dying down there, either." Mac hoped that his voice carried well, and that his friend Pete could hear him clearly. "I've been in tighter spots, and we can't give up on those people down there. Not without digging a little deeper."

Gantner permitted MacGyver to steer him, wanting to accompany MacGyver for as long— and for as far— as he could. "Someone should go with you. I could …"

MacGyver made a curt gesture that cut him off. "No way, Gant. I **need** you up here. Besides, you know I do my best work alone."

"What can I do up here… besides worry and pace?" the little man grumbled.

"You can stay on that radio," Mac pointed to the spare unit in Gantner's hand. "I need someone up here to make sure nobody forgets that I'm down there!" Mac added in a confidential tone, "We've got a private scientific facility and a government concern working here… you've got to make sure nobody red-tapes me to death!"

"Of course, Mac… of course… but are you **sure** …"

"Absolutely." MacGyver's tone was confident and final.

"Here it is." Pete had stopped. He pressed a panel on the wall and a concealed door popped open nearby to reveal a small digital keypad and a release handle. MacGyver and Gantner watched as he punched in a code. "This is the access to the wiring duct. There's only one passage and it leads to the grate in the elevator shaft." Pete turned to regard MacGyver. "I don't need to remind you that **if** you should gain access to the shaft, you'll still have to deal with the car. It is stuck somewhere around the Second level, but if someone somehow manages to get inside it and get it going… "

"Don't worry, Colsen," MacGyver said wryly, shrugging out of his jacket. "This isn't my first barbeque."

"Right." Pete sighed. He thrust out a hand towards MacGyver. "I still think you're crazy, mister… but I wish you luck. We'll all be up here looking after you—"

Mac took his hand. Words were unnecessary. They had both been in situations like this before, and both knew by heart the words that could not now be spoken.

MacGyver handed over his jacket. "Hang this up in your office for me, will ya, Colsen? It's my favorite jacket. Don't want to get it scuffed up down there."

"Try not to get yourself scuffed up, either," Pete said tartly, screening the worry from his voice. Then he nodded to the engineer who had accompanied them; he grasped the release handle and gave it a hard turn. Gantner jumped back as a section of flooring he was standing near began to open upward like a metal lotus in bloom.

Inside there was a dogged hatch, such as one might see on a submarine. The engineer knelt and spun the wheel to unlock the hatch. He lifted the heavy thing easily, revealing a short drop to the top of a metal stair.

With a wink at his friends MacGyver hopped down through the hole, landing nimbly on the top of the ladder. Pete and Gantner both leaned out over the opening.

"MacGyver." Mac was already climbing down, but he paused and looked up as Pete spoke. "That mike is voice-activated. All you gotta do is talk. We'll be listening."

"Okey-doke." Mac shifted the microphone closer to his face. He glanced upward once more and saw the faces of two friends framed by the open hatch. They both wore expressions of concern, but Pete had a twinkle in his eyes that conveyed to MacGyver that he also had confidence in him.

The sight of them made MacGyver grin again. To worried Gantner he called up in a jaunty voice. "Ed… _**relax!**_ Big date on Sunday! You're playing ball with my little brother!"

**Mac's Voice-over:**   
_And I was off and running! Well…crawling anyway. This tunnel reminded me of the movie I caught on 'The Late, Late Show' last night. 'The Great Escape' is one of the best movies ever made, in my humble opinion. Hopefully, I'm going to find a way to make my own 'great escape' from this place. And I pray it isn't going to be necessary for me to dig my way out._

_No matter what Burke said, I still wasn't convinced that this explosion was an accident. I suppose Pete's presence kind of confirmed that feeling. I didn't have any evidence to indicate who might have been responsible… and if Pete knew, he probably would have found a way to let me know, too._

_I would have given a lot for five minutes' private talk with him, but I knew that was impossible. If the person who orchestrated this disaster got wind of who Andy Colsen really was, it would likely cost us both our lives… and Steubens and Marlow and the other people trapped down here would die for sure._

_The tunnel wasn't very long, and it appeared undamaged. A running dialogue was SOP in a situation like this. For the benefit of my guardian angels listening on the two-way radio, I whistled a tune so they'd know I was alive and kicking._

In the computer control room, three men stood in the midst of the organized chaos, listening intently to MacGyver's progress. When the sound of whistling came out over the loudspeaker, one of them closed his eyes as if in regret or pain.

Gantner noticed the expression on Andy Colsen's face, but he assumed that it was because the Director of Operations did not believe that MacGyver could succeed in this dangerous undertaking. He glanced away, working hard to conceal his own despair.

Burke covered the microphone in his headset and asked, "What is that? Are we getting some kind of interference?"

Gantner shook his head. "It's called 'Cowboy's Lament'. It's from an old cowboy movie that Mac made me watch once."

Pete had seen that movie, too— 'Streets of Laredo'. MacGyver was a nut for old black and white shoot-'em-ups, and he often invited Pete over to his apartment to watch them.

MacGyver stopped whistling; he'd reached the grate. Pete shoved his fears into the back of his mind and focused on the job—people were counting on him.

MacGyver's voice came through the speakers clearly. "Well, I've reached the grate. Can't see any damage so far." The men listened closely to the sounds of MacGyver's movements, then suddenly Burke and Gantner recoiled at the noise that suddenly assaulted their ears; a rending and crash of metal followed by a series of sharp crackling explosions.

"What was that?" Pete asked. His steady voice calmed his nervous companions.

"Yeah. Well, there's nothin' wrong with your lasers," MacGyver announced.

 _Andy Colsen would be condescending,_ Pete thought. _I can do that._ "I told you, you couldn't get through."

MacGyver was not discouraged. "We-ell—then maybe it's time for a smoke." There came a rustle of paper and foil, and then they heard MacGyver mutter, "C'mon, pal. How 'bout a light." MacGyver coughed and made a spitting sound.

"Is he _**really**_ taking the time for a smoke?"

Burke covered his mike again, and said, "For Pete's sake, Andy… give the man a break."

~~~~~

Barbara felt like she could use a break. The ceiling had stopped collapsing, which was good… but the bio lab had suffered a lot of damage. All the exits were blocked by rubble. The air, pungent with smoke and the acrid odors of spilled chemicals, sweat, and fear, was growing stuffy. No fresh air was coming from the vents, and the intercoms were dead and irreparable. There was nothing anyone could do but get comfortable and wait.

Waiting was not one of the things that Barbara Spencer was good at. After taking a few moments to catch her breath and get hold of herself, she turned her attention to the other people in the room. Many were injured, though none worse than her friend Dobbson. The cut on his head was still bleeding. She found another, cleaner cloth in a cabinet and folded it into a bandage, wondering if the man was a hemophiliac.

A couple of the women in the room began to cry. One of the men moved toward them and tried to comfort them, but one woman became angry. "Don't lie to us," she snarled at him. "We're all gonna die! We're gonna suffocate! If we don't get crushed to death when the lab collapses!"

"There's no use in talk like that," Barbara said. "We should all try to stay calm until they come to rescue us."

"What do you know?" the woman demanded. Her tears leaked through her mascara and dripped from her jaw in blackish streaks. "What if they don't come? What if we're the last ones alive and nobody is coming? We should be doing something!"

"What is your name, my dear?" Dobbson asked suddenly.

"Charlotte."

"I have a suggestion, Charlotte," Dobbson said. "Shut up." The woman gaped at him in shock. "You're doing nothing but wasting what air we have, and I for one am confident that we shall be rescued." He smiled up at Barbara. "I was convinced I was going to die down on the third level… but an angel swept me up. And I haven't come this far to give up now."

Barbara smiled back at him. She was glad that Dobbson had been unable to see her own tears when she had broken down, and she was determined not to make such a display again. She found the women's panic distasteful.

"We'll all get out of this," she murmured to him, patting his shoulder gently. _Somehow._

"We need a way to communicate with the surface," the man who had been pacing muttered aloud. He was trying to repair the intercom, but it was hopeless. He carefully approached the clogged hallway. A massive girder had come down with the ceiling and about a ton of dirt and debris. He picked up a rock and banged on the metal. It made a dull sound. He tossed the rock aside and picked up a metal pipe.

The pipe rang off of the surface of the girder with a clear PING! He struck the metal again, listening for an echo.

"That is **very** annoying," Charlotte said pointedly.

"It is also very smart," said Barbara. "Do it again. Keep doing it. Someone could hear it."

"I say," Dobbson added, "were you ever in the Scouts? Tap in groups of three… that is a distress signal."

"Great," muttered Charlotte cynically. "If there are any passing troupes of Boy Scouts… I'm sure we'll be rescued in no time!"

Everyone ignored her. They all took a bit of solace in the tapping sound, willing it with all their intent to carry upward to the surface and let someone know that there was life in the ruins… desperate life in need of help.


	13. Shafted

**Mac's Voice-over:  
** _I know I already mentioned this, but it bears repeating—I_ _**don't** _ _like heights.  
_

_Something you learn after climbing down your first handful of elevator shafts— most folks don't waste money on lighting inside the shaft. They're always, always, always as dark as an ink well._

_Which is why I'm a lucky man. Can't see the bottom… don't know how far there is to fall!_

_Still, I found myself hesitating on the edge of the drop. The smell of the fried lasers filled the air—made me cough a bit—but didn't quite get the taste of Pete's cigarettes out of my mouth. I don't know why anyone would want to inhale those awful things deliberately… I'd have given a lot for a breath of sweet air right then._

_But the memory of it was the best I was going to get._

_The radio crackled, reminding me that I wasn't entirely alone in the dark._

Burk's voice echoed around the enclosed space where MacGyver was crouching. "Franklin, get some rope and a high-powered lantern from Supply and take it down to MacGyver…"

"No time, Charlie," MacGyver said, scooting around so that his legs dangled into the abyss. "I'll be gone by the time he gets here… time's a'wastin'." MacGyver twisted and lowered himself until he felt a groove in the wall with the toes of his shoes. He dug in and reached to his left, where he knew he'd find a long pipe leading wires vertically through the shaft. "Colsen, on the schematics that I left with you, the cables for the main power source are routed through this shaft, right? I'm going to follow them down as far as they can take me."

"Watch out for breakages," Pete's voice cautioned.

Mac let out a slight chuckle. "Are the lights still on up there?"

"Yeah."

"Well, then… it's not likely that they're broke, then! But I'll be careful anyway…"

"Wise-guy." Mac heard Pete mutter softly. It made him grin, but he saved his breath for climbing.

MacGyver felt his way down, making good progress. There were grooves circling the shaft every ten feet or so, and the piping was thick and strong. Mac lowered himself smoothly until he scuffed the surface of the elevator car on his last step down.

There was a thick layer of loose soil on the top of the car. MacGyver knelt and ran his fingers through the dirt until he found the service door. He dug out the handhold but it took some effort to lift it open. A shaft of light leaped up through the small opening, swirling with dust. Mac dropped his game bag through the opening before lowering himself through. He'd reached Level Two.

~~~~~

Sidney Marlow saw no use in clawing at the wreckage that blocked the doorway. He could see that there was no way he could hope to shift the debris single-handedly. The air was full of smoke and heavy with dust. Acrid odors from the smashed containers and crumpled shelves of the lab mingled with the atmosphere to make it almost intolerable to breathe. The irritation caused his eyes to water.

There was a unit on the wall that should regulate the control of air in the room. Marlow pressed the button repeatedly, but like so many other things it was unresponsive. He blinked and wiped the tears away as he went once again to check on his friend.

Karl Steubens was still unconscious. Marlow had tried to move his friend into a comfortable position, keeping his head a bit elevated. He had an ugly wound on his scalp, which was bleeding again. Marlow cast around for something to use as a bandage, but seeing nothing to hand, he tore off one of the sleeves of his shirt and folded it with clumsy fingers. He pressed it against Steuben's head, trying to be gentle and firm at the same time.

Nervous, frightened, and undoubtedly still in shock, Marlow found marginal comfort in the sound of his own voice. He spoke to his friend out loud.

"Shame to t-tear it up, old boy… you know, my wife gave me this suit! But the j-jacket's ruined anyway. That looks like it might hurt… s-sorry but I must press hard if the bleeding is going to s-stop… I _**do**_ wish they'd c-come soon."

Marlow paused, hoping that Steubens would open his eyes and answer him, or even tell him to shut up his chattering. But there was no response; Karl lay as if dead, though his breathing continued and his heartbeat was strong when Marlow sought it at his wrist with trembling fingers.

"They will come, d-don't you think?" Marlow said, settling down next to where his friend lay. He had propped the unconscious man up on a short stair frame to keep him above the noxious vapors coagulating on the floor. He took one of the man's hands into his own, chafing it gently. "It's just a matter of t-time. Those men on the speaker… th-th-they said that th-they were trying to g-g-get down h-here..."

Marlow paused and took a few breaths. He always stuttered when he was anxious, even when he was talking to himself. It was a nervous habit that he'd never managed to break. Steubens was the only one he could ever talk to without stammering. The tall, lanky scientist always had a way of making Marlow relax and feel confident. It was one of the reasons that their friendship had endured though the years since they'd been in school together in Edinburgh. That… and the game.

 _Chess._ Marlow looked down at the floor, which was still swimming with fumes and foul smoke. A number of objects lay half-drowned in the unnatural fog. Marlow bent down and picked up a small piece of the debris. It was a small lump of white marble, intricately carved in the shape of a noble horse's head; one of Steuben's knights. The base of the piece was broken and a chip had been taken out of the proud profile.

Marlow fingered the piece, swallowing back his despair. "You sh-should never have moved that rook in like that, Karl… you really couldn't afford to lose your knight. And you virtually s-sacrificed the s-second one… for a mere few p-pawns! It's like you were… I don't know… trying to d-draw out the game." He sighed, letting the ruined piece fall from his fingers.

"We c-could use a white knight ourselves, right about now, eh Karl?"

~~~~~

MacGyver's feet touched the floor, and he was glad to be leaving the utter darkness in the shaft for the semi-darkness of the elevator car. The doors of the car were open and showed marks of having been pried open. "I think I'm in," he announced for the benefit of his listeners.

Pete nodded as he heard MacGyver's words. Burke and Gantner stood nearby, both tuned in on their own radios. "What's it look like down there?" Pete asked.

"Twilight Zone." Mac answered briefly, not relishing the taste of the air. It was thick with the acrid odor of burned wiring and ochre dust. He slung his bag over his shoulder so that his hands were free and walked out into the corridor. "Elevator's jammed in the shaft, so I'm going to have to find another way to the lower level. Heading for the Bio Lab."

MacGyver's eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light, and as he walked he looked around at the damage for more signs of survivors. The damage was much more apparent on this level; the floor was strewn with dirt and drifted in places with debris from fallen ceiling tiles and crumpled pipes. Overhead, dangling wires crackled, showering the corridor with sparks. He ducked as he walked through and entered another corridor, hurrying to pass more spitting wires. He silently hoped that none of the vapors cloying in the air were flammable.

Then he spotted it; scuffed footprints in the dust. It was impossible to decipher the number of people who had made them or which direction they had been moving; too much fresh dirt had fallen and covered the marks.

Something creaked in the walls around him. MacGyver rose and continued forward as swiftly as caution permitted. On his left he noticed a fire hose and extinguisher. The glass in the case was standing open and the fire ax was missing.

He saw where the corridor branched out to either side, and from his mental map knew in which direction the Bio Lab lay, but as he rounded the corner, he was forced to stop. Where the entrance of the lab should have been a great pile of debris completely filled the corridor, from wall to sagging wall.

"We got a problem, boys."


	14. Boy Scout

_We got a problem, boys. Damn…_

Gantner's anxious voice answered immediately. "What is it, Mac?"

"Well, the corridor's caved in ahead here… I don't think I can make that Bio Lab." MacGyver spotted something lying in the dirt. He stooped and came up with a woman's high-heeled shoe. He shook the dirt out of it and examined it, then regarded the floor again. What few tracks he could see led toward the cave-in, but none of them led away. _Where did they go?_

"Back the other way, MacGyver. There's a control room – "

As Pete was speaking, a faint metallic ringing sound echoed though the corridor. MacGyver did not turn away; he froze in place and listened. "Hold it a second."

After a moment the sounds reoccurred… a rhythmic noise, but so faint that it was hard to distinguish exactly where it was coming from. MacGyver moved farther down the blocked corridor and saw that there was a gap between the ceiling and the top of the heap of dirt.

Casting aside caution – but hanging on the shoe he'd found – MacGyver scrambled up the mound of debris. He crawled in as far as he could, but the gap narrowed quickly to a couple of cramped feet of space. He wormed himself forward with elbows and knees until he could go no further, until several grey concrete blocks and a huge metal I-beam blocked his progress. He stopped there and became utterly still, listening.

Gantner's voice crackled through the silence. "Mac, what's happening?"

"I'm getting a tapping sound coming from the direction of the lab. I got a pretty big girder in my way here, though." The rubble groaned and shifted under him; Mac looked around, trying to estimate how much time he might have before the whole ceiling collapsed and squashed him like a pancake.

Things seemed to be stable for the moment, but MacGyver couldn't be sure how long that would last if he managed to move any of the debris. But first, he needed to be sure he was going in the right direction. Using what he had at hand, he rapped three times on the girder with the heel of the shoe. It made a sharp, loud sound.

"Come on back to me, one more time," Mac half-prayed, lowering his head to listen hard. Almost instantly, three clear taps came vibrating down the girder in answer. "I got some life down here, boys," Mac announced gladly.

~~~

After she had calmed down, Charlotte volunteered to take a turn tapping the distress signal. She was still afraid, but she channeled her stress usefully by banging away with the pipe. Each blow seemed to make her feel better.

It was beginning to get uncomfortable to breathe. People had begun to settle down on the floor, leaning back against the cracked walls or against one another. There was no more discussion concerning of the direness of the situation or the odds of being rescued. An atmosphere of anxious interest settled over them, as if waiting to see the result of a particular experiment. Some tried to sleep, others wept quietly into their hands.

When the sharp echoes resounded through the room, Charlotte dropped her pipe, she was so surprised. It clattered noisily on the floor. Everyone had lifted their heads at the sound, but no one spoke; they listened intensely, incredulous hope lighting their dirt- and blood-streaked faces.

Shakily, Charlotte picked up her tool, and taking a deep breath she gave the end of the girder three firm taps, just as she had been doing before. Then she clutched the pipe with both hands and prayed.

"I can hear something!" a woman whispered excitedly. She had been sitting next to the wall nearest the pile of debris. She cradled her injured wrist close and pressed her ear to the wall. "There's something scratching around up there!"

"Get back! Everyone, move away from the debris!" As a group, the survivors moved across the room and huddled against the far wall. Barbara was no less excited than her peers. She kept up the pressure on Dobbson's bandage, but laid her arm across his shoulders, giving and receiving comfort. Dobbson smiled with gratitude and patted her hand gently.

Hardly any oxygen was wasted for many long seconds as everyone in the room held their breath and waited.

~~~

Listening to the sounds scraping out of the radio speakers, Gantner managed to withhold his questions; it was obvious that MacGyver was in the middle of a situation and this wasn't the time to demand explanations.

For the moment, MacGyver was stuck. Colsen was scratching his balding head, staring off into the middle-distance as he spoke, "Ah, MacGyver… the girder. Can you move it?"

"Well, that'd take _some_ doing. It's wedged in here pretty good." Mac's response had been stilted with the sounds of effort. "If I could raise it up about three or four inches, I might be able to swing it to one side . . ."

Gantner looked at Burke and Colsen; they both appeared cool and calm. Burke was leaning into the sounds of MacGyver's progress. Colsen was constantly flipping through the schematics or riffling through papers, trying to be ready to answer any question or problem that Mac might present.

Gantner felt useless just standing there. He was tremendously nervous, sweating badly, and his mouth was dry. The air conditioning in the control room which had at first felt icy and overpowering now seemed inadequate. He helped himself to a cup from the tray that one of the corpsmen had provided for them, pushing aside the microphone to take a drink.

"What was that sound?" Mac demanded.

Surprised, Gantner responded, "It was me, Mac. Just taking a sip of water."

"…Water..."

**MacGyver's Voice-Over:**   
_Water was the answer!_

_I don't think I've ever moved so fast in my life as I did getting off of that pile! Using a fire hose as a hydraulic lift was an inspiration, and I didn't really know why I felt such urgency… I just knew I needed to move fast._

_As I cut through the thick material of the hose with my knife, I sent up a small prayer for forgiveness. Defiling fire hoses is something that I never like to do… but they are just so blasted useful!_

_I didn't want to think about what would happen if the roof collapsed after I shifted that girder – I'd be trapped inside with whoever had been signaling – but I couldn't just leave them now that I knew that they were in there, still alive … could I?_

_The lift was working like a charm! The trick was finding enough leverage as I put my back into the problem…_

All three men in the control room became alarmed by the sounds of the grunts and groans coming over the radio, Had the roof collapsed on MacGyver? He sounded as if he were in great pain!

Pete couldn't stand it anymore. "MacGyver! What are you doing down there?"

"Prayin' my back doesn't give out."

MacGyver strained against the bulk mass or weight of the girder, grimacing as he pushed with his entire body and will. With a tremendous effort that wrung a roar from his throat, the beam finally shifted and then suddenly he was tumbling head-first into the Bio Lab in a slide of dirt and gravel. He couldn't keep in the grunt of pain as a rock about the size of his head bounced over him.

Adrenaline coursing through his body, MacGyver pushed-up from the dust immediately. He shook off the fall and the bruises as easily as he might brush dirt from his hands.

Even before he had picked himself up his long form from the floor, he looked up at the small crowd of surprised and relieved scientists and said – very matter-of-factly –

"Anybody hurt seriously?"

The crowd of bemused scientists watched MacGyver as he tumbled into the room amid a shower of dirt and rocks. They had expected to see the face of a fireman, dirt-streaked beneath a brightly colored helmet, or perhaps one of their own company's engineers, offering a hand through an opening carved though the impenetrable wall.

The last thing any of them had expected was to see a tall, youthful man, clad in a flannel shirt with a fishing bag slung over his shoulder, bursting through the wreckage like a stripper out of a cake! They looked at each other for a few seconds, wondering if hypoxia had already damaged their brains.

But the fresh air blowing in through the wide hole now gaping above the debris was no illusion. They breathed it in with deep and grateful gasps.

 _My God,_ thought Charlotte, still holding the pipe in her hands, _they really did send us a Boy Scout!_


	15. Native Guide

From the moment that she had heard the tapping echo of their imminent rescue, Barbara had been consumed by a desire to get to the surface. She wanted to put the horror of that day behind her, and let the fresh desert air and sunlight wipe away the memories of the missing and the dead from her mind. She had done all she could do, and she had just enough will power and energy left to leave this place and its ghosts behind. She tried not to think about the terrible loss to the scientific community—she couldn't bring herself even to name him—but deep in her mind she suffered, believing that he was now dead, buried with his brilliant research and unspoken ideas in the ruin of the KIVA.

Then this man had slithered into the room in a rockslide and a cloud of dusty but welcome fresh air, and Barbara was as startled and bemused by his voice as she was by his appearance. He spoke with a Midwestern accent and a matter-of-fact tone that seemed as out of place as a lawnmower on a spaceship.

"Anybody hurt seriously?"

Barbara had been about to ask _him_ if **he** was all right, but he was already pushing himself up to his knees. He was looking around, taking in every detail of the room and the occupants, while his hands wandered to his belt, bag, and pockets as if searching for missing items.

His eyes swept across her, and Barbara was taken aback at how handsome he was. She blushed profoundly, ducking her chin and trying to focus on Dobbson's injury to hide her embarrassment. She was annoyed with herself; how could she react like such a schoolgirl—at a time like this!

When she glanced up again, she saw that he was looking at Dobbson, and she realized that he was evaluating the man's condition—he was clearly the most injured of all the scientists in the group—and she felt a flutter of disappointment.

Which made her even more annoyed with herself.

~~~

As MacGyver looked over the group of weary survivors, he noticed one woman in particular. She had striking blonde hair, but what caught his attention the most was the fact that compared with the other people in the room, she and the man she was supporting were more disheveled, their clothes noticeably more soiled. They had obviously been through a lot more hell than anyone else. But they also seemed tougher. The woman wore a determined, almost grim expression, and her face was flushed. MacGyver decided that she must be very relieved to be rescued.

The others were certainly relieved. One of the men came forward with an eager step to answer MacGyver's question. "Some of us, but we can all walk."

MacGyver lunged to his feet. "Well, all right! Let's getcha out of here. One at a time, up through that hole." He gestured to the pile behind him, eager to get them out of the room in case of further cave-ins. He didn't relish the idea of having to dig his way out, too. "Make your way to the corridor from there."

A couple of the scientists scrambled to obey, fear having set flight to motion. They were followed more slowly by the others, the unhurt supporting the injured so that they could make the awkward climb to freedom.

The blonde woman assisted her companion, holding a bloodstained cloth to his forehead. "Do you think you can make it up that?" she asked him.

The man smiled at her. "After what we've already been through? I expect this will be a piece of cake." He took the cloth from her hands and tied it around his head, then proceeded to climb up the pile of rubble. One of the more able-bodied men waited at the top to help people through. She didn't follow immediately, but lingered to lend a helping hand to those who were still shaken and unsteady on their feet.

MacGyver watched them filing out; he would wait until they were all out before he proceeded. "Colsen, you got a whole buncha people comin' your way. A rope ladder in the elevator shaft oughta get 'em topside." Some of the people waiting to evacuate glanced at MacGyver uncertainly before they realized he was talking into a radio.

"We'll see them out from up here. **Thank you!** " was Burke's relieved and grateful answer.

"Well, we got lucky. Let's just hope it holds, huh?" MacGyver replied.

"Sure you can go on, Mac?" Gantner said.

"Well, unless you got another way to get to Marlow and Steubens. I'm just gettin' lazy."

Barbara's turn had come and she had just begun to scramble up the pile of dirt when she overheard MacGyver speaking. Her desire for escape fled up and out of the hole at the sound of Steuben's name.

She turned back toward MacGyver, hope smeared on her face along with traces of dirt. "Marlow and Steu – you're not saying they're still alive, are you?"

"Yes, ma'am. In a lab on the Third level?"

Barbara's face lit up with excitement. "I know where! I – I mean, I was just about to join them again in his lab when the first explosion hit. Are you going down after them?"

"Yeah, well, that's the plan. It sure would be a big help if you could tell me how you made it all the way back up here," MacGyver asked eagerly. _Maybe it wouldn't be such a trial to get down to the third level, if just one of these survivors had made it up this far on their own!_

Barbara's bright expression hardened and changed. "I'll do better than that. I'll show you. I'm going with you."

 _Oh, boy._ "No, whoa – whoa, whoa, no, no. I'm sorry, but the only place you're going is up through that hole to the surface," MacGyver said, trying to be simultaneously gentle of her feelings but firm that she should not remain in danger.

From the way she glared at him, MacGyver could tell that she wasn't going to back down that easily. She didn't cross her arms or clench her fists; it was more of something in the way her eyes threw sparks, and the way the dirt on her fair skin failed to darken the fierce light of determination in her expression.

"Oh, no. Not without Karl Steubens."

MacGyver tried another tactic. He couldn't let her proceed with him without being fully aware of the situation, and certainly not if he didn't know more about her.

"Uh, look, uh – " he wiggled his fingers to invite her to share her name with him.

"Spencer. Barbara Spencer."

MacGyver sighed. "Barbara. What if I were to tell you that if I can't stop an acid leak down there, in a few hours they're gonna flood this whole complex with sodium hydroxide. Hmm?"

"Then I'd say we're wasting time," Barbara responded with a challenging gleam in her eyes.

MacGyver accepted the inevitable. "Ah, guys – we got a _little_ change of plan here. I have a Barbara Spencer on my hands –" as he made this announcement through his radio, he returned Barbara's regard, softened with a wry grin, "– she's comin' with me."

~~~

Up on the First level, Pete Thornton was listening to the two voices coming quite clearly over the radio. He covered his eyes with one hand as MacGyver capitulated to Barbara's demand. _That boy never could learn to say_ _ **no**_ _to a woman,_ he thought wryly.

Gantner noticed his expression. He covered his mike and whispered, "What's wrong, Andy? Andy?"

Pete recovered quickly, remembering who he was supposed to be, and covered his own mike to respond, "I'm fine – I'm fine. Just one more complication. I sure hope she doesn't get in MacGyver's way."

Burke's assistant Gus was kneeling down at the service panel of a nearby computer console and had overheard the conversation. "Barb really knows her way around the KIVA," he volunteered helpfully, looking up from the naked circuit board that he was testing. "She's Steuben's right-hand man … so to speak. She's familiar with all his research and she knows the labs inside and out." Then he blushed, realizing he was wearing a silly grin that might be considered inappropriate when speaking of a colleague– particularly one of the opposite gender – and he hastily turned back to his task.

Gantner sighed. He leaned in so that only Pete could hear him, and softly he spoke his confession, "I was really hoping that somehow Steubens and Marlow were with those survivors, and that Mac could come back up right away."

Pete nodded but said nothing. He knew that MacGyver would have gone on anyway … there was still the acid leak to stop. Until he ran out of time, the ruined KIVA laboratories were MacGyver's playground. Pete was as worried about MacGyver as Gantner, but he couldn't express as much without compromising his cover.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Pete settled for lighting up another cigarette—borrowed from one of the engineers—and filled the air with smoke instead.


	16. Clearance

MacGyver waited until Barbara had climbed up and through the hole before he spoke. "Colsen, what can you tell me about my new guide?"

"She's Karl Steuben's assistant—been with him for five years. She's got clearance for all the levels of the KIVA." There was a short pause where, though MacGyver couldn't see, Pete was grinning at the disconcerted Gus as he added, "By all accounts, she's a woman to be reckoned with."

Pete heard the smile in MacGyver's response. "I gathered that much. Hang around and we'll see where Spencer wants us to go."

"Will do. You two watch yourselves."

~~~

Barbara crawled through the narrow opening, wishing—not for the last time—that she had worn a pantsuit instead of a dress to work that day. As she pulled herself along, her hand closed on the battered shoe she had brought up from the third level—it had been half-buried in loose dirt. Grimly, she clutched it tightly and struggled forward with even more determination. Hands were waiting on the other side to help her down.

"Dobbson." The little man was limping down the corridor, one hand on his head and the other bracing himself against the wall as he made his way toward the elevator shaft and the promise of escape; he stopped and turned back at the sound of Barbara's voice.

She hurried to his side, pressing the shoe into his hands. "Take this up with you… please."

"Up? Aren't you coming out with us?"

Barbara shook her head. "No. I've got to try to help Dr. Steubens and his friend Dr. Marlow. They're still trapped in his lab."

"You're going back down to the Third?" Dobbson gaped at her. "After everything we went through to get up here?"

"I have to, Dobbson. This guy they sent down… he doesn't know the KIVA…not like I do. I can get him there faster than if he wanders around alone down here."

Dobbson looked at the shoe, and then he raised his eyes to look into Barbara's face. "Are you sure you want to do this? I know that you're dedicated to your work… but I think you're taking loyalty a little too far. Dr. Steubens would never expect you to risk your life like this."

Forcing bravado, Barbara smiled and shrugged. "What risk? I've got the Boy Scout with me, remember?" She turned and nodded in the direction of the bio lab.

As she spoke, MacGyver came sliding down the dirt pile and landed on his feet. He slapped the dust from his trousers and immediately followed the hose back to the fire extinguisher box, where he twisted the lever back to relieve the water pressure. He tried to push the glass door of the cabinet back in place-as far as it would go with the hose unraveled-but the broken glass fell out he moved it, causing him utter a surprised whistle and snatch his hand back.

Dobbson squinted toward in MacGyver's direction. "Hmm. Is he a handsome fellow, this man? I think I'm jealous that you'd rather stay down here with him than come away with me!"

Barbara flushed. "I haven't noticed," she replied tartly.

"Hmm. You'll get him through safely, I'll wager. I'll be waiting upstairs for you, my dear."

Barbara caught one of the other scientists and put Dobbson's hand on the man's arm. "Goodbye, Dobbson. I'll see you again in a few hours."

She watched the other survivors as they limped down the corridor, bunching around the elevator doors where they waited to ascend through the dusty shaft of light that now shown down through the opening. More than a mere rope ladder, Burke had organized several volunteers to drop down through the shaft with ropes and harnesses, lifting the shaken and injured scientists to safety.

Barbara became conscious of warmth against her back. She turned her head and saw that the man who had rescued them standing close to her… not quite touching, but close; he was also watching the progress of the exodus.

When he saw her glance at him, he offered her a wry smile and lifted one hand in what struck her as a ridiculously chivalrous gesture. "Shall we?"

She turned immediately and began to walk toward the control room, eager not to let him see how much she would prefer to be climbing out than going down again into the dusty and crumbling hell she knew waited on the Third level of the KIVA.

She had her back toward him; if she had seen MacGyver's face, she could have guessed by his expression how much he would have liked to see her climbing out, too.

~~~~~

Burke had a look on his face like he'd been pole-axed. He'd just gotten back from organizing the extraction of the surviving scientists MacGyver had found, and Andy had given him an update on MacGyver's status. "What? W-what did you say that name was again?"

"Some woman named Spencer. She volunteered to show MacGyver where she last saw Steubens and Marlo—"

"Are you out of your mind, Colsen?" Burke demanded angrily. "She's one of the few people who know Steuben's research inside and out… we can't risk her like this!"

"It was _her_ decision," Pete answered calmly. "Look, I'm not any crazier about it than you are… but the fact is that if we can find Steubens faster this way… we'll have a better chance of getting them out in time!"

Burke sighed. "Okay, Colsen," he muttered at last, "but I hope this guy can hold his own."

Pete's forehead creased with concern. "What do you mean?"

The corner of Burke's mouth crooked up in a sarcastic smile. "He just better hope that none of the information he needs is classified. The earth will open up and swallow the sun before Barbara Spencer gives anyone without proper clearance so much as the time of day."

Gantner blinked in confusion. "I don't understand… you authorized MacGyver to go down there. Doesn't that mean he's got whatever clearance he needs?"

"Come on, Gantner… you work for the State Department!" Burke's laugh was a touch bitter. "You know the difference between 'authorization' and 'clearance'."

Gantner frowned and muttered, "Oh boy."

Pete bit his lip. It clearly hadn't occurred to Gantner to inform Spencer – or even Burke, for that matter – that MacGyver already had top-level State Department clearance … and 'Colsen' wouldn't know it either. Pete had to remain silent – though it took a massive effort – and prayed silently that MacGyver would manage to charm what he needed to know out of Spencer… before time ran out for everyone below Level One.

~~~~~

Barbara led MacGyver straight toward the control room. The walls and ceiling had buckled in some places, but the corridor was still passable. They went past several doors, but Spencer did not glance at them or even slow down; she was retracing the steps that had led her and Dobbson up from the lower level. Her goal was to find Karl Steubens and get him safely out of this place as quickly as possible.

MacGyver lagged behind by several paces. He looked around and stopped occasionally to push open doors, giving each room a cursory investigation, occasionally nudging piles of debris with his foot but finding nothing useful. The next door he tested failed to yield to his hand. Squinting through the small window, he could see nothing but darkness.

Barbara glanced back and noticed that he'd stopped. She halted and turned. "What are you doing?" she asked sharply.

"Just seeing what there is to see," MacGyver answered. Eyeing the door and estimating its strength, he put his shoulder against the frame and leaned hard.

"That is Dr. Zaylus' office… and it's private." Barbara's lips were pressed together in a firm line of disapproval. "You have no business—" she jumped a little as the door suddenly gave way to his thrust and popped open. "You have no business in there!" she repeated, coming back several steps toward MacGyver. "Come out of there at once!"

MacGyver stepped back out of the room, leaving the door open. "Nobody home."

Barbara leaned past MacGyver and pulled the door closed. "His research is classified! You don't have clearance… you've no right to break open doors!"

"I didn't break it… I, ah… circumvented the lock." MacGyver hedged. "I'm sure that Dr. Zaylus would feel differently about my 'entering uninvited' if he had been in there and needing help. Shall we continue?"

Barbara pressed her lips closed again. Her training had prepared her for the idea that some security measures must be sacrificed in a desperate crisis, but she found it very difficult to admit to herself that things were so desperate—because that would bring her closer to admitting to herself that it may be too late to rescue Dr. Steubens.

Rather than argue with the man, she nodded and walked on, saving her energy for what might come next.


	17. Chocolate

From the control room a door led to an access chamber. Part of the ceiling had collapsed in front of it since Barbara and Dobbins had passed through, but it was nothing very heavy – just some ceiling tiles and a bit of dirt. MacGyver shifted the mess out of the way, and this time Barbara said nothing when he popped open the locked door. She did make a mental note to herself to make sure that deadbolts were installed in the next lab she worked in. Working with this man certainly had become an eye-opener as far as testing security measures.

Inside, there was round opening in the center of the floor, out of which a ladder protruded, suspended by sturdy cables.

MacGyver leaned over the opening and looked down. He sighed. "God, I hate heights."

Barbara closed her eyes. **This** _was the man who had been sent to rescue her?_ **This** _was who she was relying on for help in reaching Dr. Steubens?_ Her sigh echoed his.

But the man didn't hesitate; he shifted his bag around to his back and started briskly down the ladder, his hands and feet sure and swift on the metal rungs. The ladder shook very slightly under his weight. Barbara followed.

After they had descended a few yards, Barbara finally spoke again; she had just realized that she was risking her life with someone she knew absolutely nothing about. "I know this is a stupid time to ask… but have you got a name?"

MacGyver raised his head just enough to see her feet as he answered her, "MacGyver."

Barbara noticed that he did not look at her – though this would be an opportune moment for a guy to get a free shot up a lady's dress. Obviously, this was no _ordinary_ guy. She half-chuckled as she said, "MacGyver. That's a good name."

MacGyver grinned as he climbed, in spite of the dizziness he felt when he peered into the gloomy depths. _Maybe the frost is melting a little,_ he thought. He knew he's still have to go easy with Spencer – the dangers ahead were harder to face knowing that her safety would be at risk, too, if he made too many mistakes – but he felt lucky have such an intelligent and spirited companion.

The shaft grew darker the farther they climbed. By the time his foot reached the solid surface of the floor, MacGyver couldn't have looked up Barbara's skirt if he had wanted to. He could barely see his own hands before his face. He stood aside so that Barbara could reach the floor.

"Kinda dark in here, isn't it?" he said. His voice echoed within the chamber. Barbara heard him sniffing the air.

"It wasn't like this when we went up – there were lights in here. I don't suppose you have a flashlight in that bag of yours?"

"Nope. Stay here." MacGyver walked slowly forward, sliding his feet and reaching forward with his hands until he blindly came to a wall. From there, he circled until he found a door. "Is the Third level laid out the same as the Second?"

"This isn't the Third level," Barbara said. She was still standing beside the ladder. "We're on a sublevel that leads to the Third. We've still got quite a ways to go. In the dark," she added dryly.

"Not for long," MacGyver said. He opened the door; dim light spilled into the room and banished the gloom into shades of grey and taupe.

Barbara sighed softly with relief. She felt the same way about the dark as MacGyver felt about heights although she wasn't about to admit it. "This is the way Dobbson and I came," she confirmed. MacGyver held the door open as she approached him, but before she went through he stopped her and went out first. When he determined was sure that there were no immediate threats, he stood aside and let her pass.

"It really isn't necessary, you know," she said tentatively – she really was trying not to sound like a snipe; "this chivalry business. We're in a dangerous situation… you don't need to hold open doors for me."

"Yes, ma'am," MacGyver said respectfully. He stood and waited for her to lead the way, his small smile barely visible in the sparse light. Barbara realized he wasn't going to change his behavior at that moment; she shook her head a little and shrugged. However, when she moved to lead the way, he stepped in beside her instead of walking behind.

"Maybe you could help me out, Barbara," MacGyver began, as they walked down a dim corridor only lightly strewn with debris, "since you were down here when all this happened. Can you tell me where you were, and what you were doing?"

Barbara took a moment to answer. MacGyver recognized the look on her face; he'd spent enough time on covert operations, working with classified information and the people who handle such things, to tell when someone was trying to decide what to say and what not to. He waited patiently for what answers she was willing to give.

"I was on my way back to the lab from the commissary when the first explosion hit." MacGyver made a circling gesture with his finger, a subtle coaxing motion for more information. "I had left Dr. Marlow with Dr. Steubens in his lab."

"What were they doing at the time of the explosion?" MacGyver asked.

"I—ah, assume that they were doing… what they were doing when I left the lab," she hedged. She didn't want to tell MacGyver what Steubens and Marlow were doing. Even though it hardly qualified as classified information—with all the work and stress that had been going on in the KIVA since the time that the research data had been lost, it now seemed petty and negligent to Barbara that Steubens had insisted on setting aside work for a game of chess—the words caught in her throat, and she was appalled with herself for judging such a brilliant man.

MacGyver stopped her with a touch on the arm. He looked at her pointedly, waiting for the answers that Barbara did not want to give. "I don't see what that has to do—" she began hotly.

"I need information, Spencer." MacGyver used her surname instead of her more familiar name, hoping the distance would put her back at her ease. "I'm flying blind down here, and I need to know what happened. The people up on the surface… Charlie Burke and Andy Colsen… they're just guessing about what happened down here. I'm assuming that Marlow came here to assist Steubens in the research that they've been working on together. Can you tell me what facet of the Rainmaker Project they were experimenting with?"

Barbara gaped at him. _How did he know about Rainmaker?_ "That information is classified... h-how did you know about that?"

"I've been briefed, of course." MacGyver sighed. "Do you really think I'm just some yokel that they hired in off of the street? Spencer, I would have bet that you were smarter than that." Barbara flushed and lowered her eyes. "Tell me what you know," MacGyver added gently, "I'm trying to help."

"Well, _they_ weren't responsible!" she spat, wrenching her arm away from him with unnecessary force. "Dr. Steubens and Dr. Marlow... they were—they were playing chess— **not** building bombs!"

MacGyver merely looked at her and said mildly, "Nobody's suggested that they were." Barbara held her stare for a moment. MacGyver did not back down, nor did he look away. "But the explosion _did_ originate in Steuben's lab… didn't it?"

Barbara said nothing. She just stared at him, cheeks tinged with fire.

"Take that as a 'yes'," MacGyver muttered softly.

Barbara maintained her blank expression, refusing to admit or deny anything. Eventually they began walking again. The damage and debris became gradually worse the farther they went along the corridor.

MacGyver waited for the flush to fade from Barbara's face before he asked his next question. "Any idea what set the blasts off?"

"No." She sounded a little calmer, but MacGyver thought he could hear a note of doubt in her voice that had not been there before. "It was so sudden I barely had time to make it past the electronics lab before that exploded too."

"Huh. Steubens' lab – bio lab – electronics – seems like all the explosions were somehow connected to the labs."

"I don't see how that's possible. They're all independent of each other."

MacGyver gestured ahead; they were coming upon a set of double doors with lock-releases. "Is this where you came up?"

Barbara stepped briskly forward to push the door open. "Yeah, it's the stairway to – "

Mac lunged forward and caught her arm. "Heya, hold it, hold it – "

There were wisps of smoke leaching between the doors; Barbara had not noticed it in the dim light, but MacGyver had been expecting something like this, and had been looking for exactly such a detail. He had smelled the acrid odor of something burning as soon as they had reached this level. Years of experience dealing with explosives and fire had taught him what to look for, and what to fear.

MacGyver gently but firmly set Barbara behind him as he cautiously investigated the doors. Kicking through a pile of dirt, he came up with a round wooden dowel that had been half-buried. He pulled it free of the rubbish and, reaching forward cautiously with the stick, he touched the end of it against the metal mounting block of the door handle.

The wood immediately began to smoke and hiss, and then it burst into flames with a _**whoosh**_ that made Barbara gasp and flinch back.

MacGyver held up the burning dowel and watched the flames gnawing at the wood. It burned with an eerie blueish-green flame, telling him that the fire was being fed by an odd mixture of chemicals. He hoped that whatever fumes or vapors that were being produced weren't dangerous when inhaled; there was an unpleasant list of things that burned odorlessly and could quite easily kill them.

He debated again whether or not he should allow Barbara to continue to accompany him. He just didn't know enough about what was coming to be comfortable with her along. On the other hand, they were making excellent time, and if the fumes were dangerous, they would know it by now… they'd already be dead. Also, MacGyver chided himself, he'd known Missouri mules that were less stubborn than Barbara Spencer; he doubted that he could make her leave if he wanted to.

 _So… onward._ "Got another way down?"

Barbara was watching MacGyver's weird torch with a grimace on her face. With a note of uncertainty in her voice, she suggested, "The 'Gas Chamber'?"

"What's that?" MacGyver turned and thrust the dowel back into the pile of dirt to smother the flames.

"It's a nickname we have round here for a series of airlocks around a common lab that works with sensitive gasses. This way," she half-turned and gestured.

As he followed her, the radio on MacGyver's hip crackled, and Gantner's voice sounded through the tiny speaker. "Uh, you got three hours and twenty-seven minutes left, Mac. How's Spencer holding up?"

"She likes m'name," MacGyver grinned. "What more could I ask for?"

Pete, listening in on their talk, reflected silently on a list of things he could imagine that MacGyver could ask for – from oxygen equipment to heavy machinery to some kind of miracle – things that he wished he could provide, but couldn't even if Mac had asked. The deeper he went into the KIVA, the less Pete could do to help him.

Barbara had turned a corner ahead. As MacGyver followed her, he saw that the floor was strewn with what had once been the contents of a snack-vending machine. Candy bars in a variety of flavors were scattered everywhere. As if answering his own rhetorical question, MacGyver muttered, "Chocolate."

Barbara turned back toward him; she had picked her way daintily through the mess and was waiting for him to catch up. "You want one of these?" he asked her.

"No thanks," Barbara said flatly. She turned away to continue, her stomach flipping at the thought of food.

Squatting down, MacGyver studied the offering spread before him. After a moment he picked through the pile, gathering together a handful of bars with identical labels.

Barbara was disgusted. She turned to face him and crossed her arms. "How can you think about eating candy at a time like this, when the chances of us getting out of here alive – "

Even MacGyver had a limit to his patience. "I **know** what the odds are. But I thought we might be able to store up on a little energy before we pressed on." He stood up, with a gentle, "Let's go." He peeled the wrapper off of one of the bars, letting it flutter from his fingers as he walked past the remains of the toppled candy machine. The rest of the bars he slipped into his game bag.

**Mac's Voice-Over:**   
_I shouldn't be so hard on Barbara; I know she's scared. I'm just not sure she's scared for the right reasons._

_I know that there's something a lot more challenging down here than digging out survivors... there's a big honking tank of acid somewhere spilling out into the ground... and damming that river of poison is pretty high on my to-do list. I think that she may have forgotten about that little detail..._

_It won't serve any good purpose to bring it up again, now. She's just thinking about finding Steubens... that's why she came along. I'll worry about the acid leak. I don't know what she can do to help me with that problem, anyway._

_At least my stomach won't be growling at me anymore... but I do wish that the KIVA had stocked yogurt-covered raisins. Much healthier.  
_

Barbara turned down a new passage. The floors were barely littered; this part of the underground complex seemed to have been mostly spared by the explosions. However, as they approached a series of framed doorways in a long corridor, she grew a puzzled look on her face and her step faltered. "Strange," she admitted aloud.

"Wha's that?" MacGyver mumbled through a bite of chocolate.

"The airlocks along the corridor are designed to close in any emergency –"

As if triggered by her words, a red light began to flash out a warning, accompanied by a hooting klaxon. The framed doorways began to close one after the other, all down the hallway.

" **MacGyver! Hurry!"** she shouted.

But even as Barbara began to run, MacGyver was beside her, seizing her hand and pulling her swiftly beside him through the segmenting doorways. They breezed through them all until they reached the last door; a massive, opaque thing of ribbed steel. It was almost closed.

MacGyver spun Barbara through the narrow opening and tried to slip in after her, but the edge of the heavy steel-framed glass door slammed shut just as he went through, clipping his forehead. He grunted with the impact but made it through, his momentum carrying him abruptly into a wall. He pressed his face against it for a moment, out of breath. Barbara was beside him, panting.

"Ow," MacGyver announced, wiping his face to see if it was sweat trickling out of his hair, or blood. His head hurt where the door had struck him.

Barbara wandered from his side, her eyes wide with distress. She approached a viewing port overlooking the lab that the corridor bypassed. Her lips moved, but no sound escaped; tears welled up in her eyes.

She must have made some small sound; no more than a whimper, perhaps. MacGyver came up silently behind her and looked over her shoulder at the ghastly tableau.

The room below was drowned in several feet of opaque smoke. Four figures – perhaps more were hidden in the deadly fog – were slumped and sprawled on the floor.

The death toll of the KIVA was still climbing, and MacGyver and Barbara were both reminded abruptly that their efforts to reach Steuben's lab might have no better results that what they could see in front of them.


	18. Under Glass

The lab was swimming with thick, bitter air. Sidney Marlow tried not to move around too much. He felt dizzy and sick, and he didn't wonder if the cause of it was the fumes he was breathing in or the fact that the oxygen might be running out. It didn't really matter. He was more concerned with the condition of his friend Karl, who had been unconscious ever since the explosion.

Isolation and entrapment in a strange place where the cracked walls creaked and groaned and occasionally rained down chunks of plaster was doing nothing to sooth Marlow's frayed nerves. He sat beside Karl on the stairs and fidgeted. He tried to whistle a tune, but his throat was too dry for such work; he thought longingly of the bottle of water he'd left, half-finished in the back of the limousine.

With the air becoming thicker and more difficult to breathe, Marlow was beginning to think it might be a better thing if Steubens didn't wake up. That was when the scientist moaned and moved slightly, startling Marlow.

"Karl – Karl – ?" Marlow said as he bent close, to hear more easily if Steubens should speak.

Steubens groaned again, lifting his head a little. "We're – still alive?"

Marlow was so excited by the fact that Steubens had finally awakened, he failed to notice that the man's weak voice was laced with disappointment. Marlow began to chatter, glad at last to have someone with which to speak. "Well, after that explosion, it's a miracle we are, but… ah… w-we're trapped down here, and the intercom… it – it's on-off, on-off."

Steuben's head ached as if it were being pressed in a vice. "They – they know we're here?" he asked brokenly.

"Yes, they're trying to get to us, and… " Marlow paused as the ceiling creaked loudly. "With all the damage on the upper levels, it's a – it's a – "

Steubens looked around, slowly beginning to take in his surroundings. There was something that was supposed to have happened, but he couldn't quite remember what it was… he only knew that this was wrong. Sidney was alive, he was alive… and that should have made him glad, but instead he was filled with doubt and confusion. Suddenly he remembered, as the ceiling groaned above them – he felt a surge of hope that it would come crashing down and bring back the darkness.

But the ceiling did not fall, and the death of that dark hope delivered clarity to the rattled man; he realized that his designs had failed… with the worst possible results. "Oh, no."

**MacGyver's Voice-Over:**  
 _I'm impressed. Whoever designed these airlocks, they didn't skimp on anything; materials, technology, or security. The place was tight. There were no access panels to rewire, no cracks in the seals that could be pried open, no air vents that an intruder could crawl through. Tight._

_On the other hand, there were no air vents._

_Which left Spencer and me in a tight spot!_

_The only way out of this trap was through the glass that separated us from the deadly gas lurking in the lab below. As far as I could tell, it was just regular glass… unlike the reinforced transparent materials that made up the airlock door. I could probably break it with a sharp blow… but that didn't seem like such a wildly good idea at the moment._

_I had to call on my eavesdropping angels. Gant, Charlie, and Pete – I mean, Andy Colsen – would have to come through for us somehow._

"Um, Colsen?" MacGyver clipped the microphone onto his collar again. He'd discreetly moved it away from his mouth when he began following Barbara down into the KIVA, so that their every word wasn't being broadcast to anyone in hearing range of the receiver on the First level. Contrary to what Barbara Spencer thought, MacGyver was aware of the concept of 'classified intelligence'.

"We're all here, MacGyver."

"We're in a bit of a pickle, here, guys… the air locks didn't seal themselves until after we tried to go through. We're trapped just adjacent to the gas lab on the sub-level between Two and Three."

"How much air have you got?" Pete asked.

MacGyver had done the math on that particular concern. "About an hour's worth, judging on the size of this room and the rate that we're using it." He glanced at Spencer, who had turned her back to the glass so she didn't have to look at her dead co-workers. MacGyver could tell it didn't matter; she'd be seeing them many years from now – no matter where she was or what she was really looking at. So would he. "More air than luck, at the moment," he muttered.

Barbara felt MacGyver's eyes upon her, but she didn't meet his gaze. Hope that had been burning through her now turned to water and flowed out of her. She slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor. Absently tugging her skirt below her knees, she then folded her hands across her lap. Maybe if she was composed on the outside, the disarray of her mind and heart wouldn't show.

"Is there any way that you can open these doors from up there?" MacGyver asked.

"We're looking into that," Burke's voice answered promptly. MacGyver would have been happier to hear Pete's voice. Burke's continued, "Andy's gone to get the hard copies of the security protocols for that area. Some of the computers on the Third level are working – we're getting some data from there – but we're pretty blind on the sub-levels. We should be able to reroute the substations and access the security network, but… it – it may take some time."

"We've got a little of that," MacGyver said calmly. He paced out the length and breadth of the room, reaching up to get a better guesstimate of height to recalculate the cubic space. The answer he got didn't improve the situation. He returned to the window and looked again, hoping to spot something that might broaden their options. There were several banks of instrument panels, but they were too far away for him to read.

Then he remembered his bag. Tapping his forehead as if to jar loose any other good ideas that might be hiding up there, he pulled out his mutilated binoculars.

One lens was still intact. Using it like a telescope, MacGyver scanned the panels below. The thick smoke pooling three or four feet deep all through the room made it difficult to read most of the instrument panels. Of those he could read, nothing suggested any ideas.

To Barbara, he said, "Where are the exits in this lab?"

Barbara rolled her eyes toward him tiredly and sighed, "On the right, a short stair that leads to the main corridor for this sub-level. The elevator and stairwell are outside that door. There's an emergency exit in the center of the lab… but it only leads into another lab just like this one. It used to be one large lab, but when we modified it for gas research, we subdivided to get more use of the space." She spoke listlessly, as if she didn't care if her information was useful or not.

MacGyver squatted down beside her. "Spencer." She looked at him blankly. "We're going to get out of here, you know."

"Are we? Of course we are," she said with tired cynicism. "You're the Boy Scout. I forgot."

MacGyver smiled. He sat himself on the floor, facing Barbara. "So, it seems we've got some time. Anything you want to talk about?"

"Talking will use up our oxygen," she said absently. "As if that mattered," she muttered. "What do you want to know?"

"You know what **I** want to talk about," he said, "the experiments Dr. Steubens and Dr. Marlow were working on today."

"Today… it seems like years ago when this day started," Barbara said softly. She let her head fall back against the wall with a gentle bump. "I can't tell you… I can't even admit that they were or weren't working on something. It's classi– "

"Classified," MacGyver said, expecting her refusal. "Yeah, I know. So let's talk about something else. Who do you like for the Cup this year?"

"What?" Barbara blinked and focused on him.

MacGyver stretched his legs out in front of him. In the small room, his and Barbara's feet nearly touched. "The Stanley Cup. You know – professional hockey. Who's your team?"

Barbara began to laugh lightly. "I live and work in New Mexico … I've never seen a hockey game in my life!"

"Oh, then we **are** _definitely_ getting out of here," MacGyver said, bumping the toes of his boots against Barbara's shoes. "And when we do, I'm taking you to a game. You'll love it."

"Right." She rolled her eyes up and then let them close. She was glad that MacGyver wasn't going to push her to talk about the things she couldn't say. "Why don't you tell me about hockey… while we wait to get out of here?" She still wasn't convinced, but she found his idle conversation soothing – maybe because it was so silly to talk about such things under these circumstances. Or maybe it was the sound of his voice… the accent that seemed to wax and wane… the way he could make everything sound reasonable and hopeful.

Barbara needed MacGyver to give her hope, because hers was just about used up.

~~~~~~~

Pete had three other people besides himself looking for the security protocol manuals – he would have had more helping him, but space in the filing room was very limited. Every second that expired in that room weighed on Pete like a stone – lives hung on the balance, and a few grams of paper could tip those scales toward life or death.

As Pete's tired fingers located a folder containing routing schematics, one of the other men rifling through the filing cabinets suddenly barked out "I found 'em!" Pete grabbed his folder and the thick manual the young technician was waving around excitedly, rapping out a 'Good job, fellas!' as he rushed back to the computer lab with his prizes.

"How're MacGyver and Spencer doing?" Pete asked Gantner as he spread the papers on the table.

Gantner sighed before he answered. "Not good, Andy. They're gonna run out of air."

Pete felt sorry for Gantner. The man was not looking good himself; there were circle under his eyes as dark as bruises, his shirt was drenched with perspiration, and he was so nervous that he twitched at every noise.

"Not if we have anything to say about it," Pete stated firmly. "What do you know about computers, Ed?"

Gantner looked morose. "I know you should never spill coffee on a keyboard," he muttered darkly.

Pete laughed in spite of himself. "Okay, you can help me. Be an extra pair of eyes for me and watch the power levels on those terminals," Pete pointed to a set of glass dials on a console nearby. The trembling needles were hovering at various levels. "If any of those needles gets close to the red area, let me know at once."

"All right." Gantner sounded marginally better, relieved to have a task to perform that might help the situation.

A shrill jangling sound cut through the chatter in the lab. Pete raised his head, recognizing the distinctive sound that an army radio-telephone made. Gus answered the thing, then passed the receiver to Burke.

Pete watched Burke's face as he listened. By the set of his jaw and the way his eyes darkened, Pete could tell that whatever he was hearing, it was sure to be more bad news. He remembered then what Burke had said about the 'solutions' that the Army was working on.

Burke murmured a word and set the receiver back in its cradle. Sidling up to his Head of Operations, Burke spoke softly into his ear, so that Gantner could not hear. "We've got about fifty-five minutes, Andy. The tankers are almost here." He flicked his eyes meaningfully toward Gantner. "Don't tell him yet… he's too emotionally invested. We don't need someone flapping around here, panicking and making things worse. Okay?"

Pete nodded, but he felt a little bit like flapping and flailing himself. Swallowing the ache in his throat which the thought of MacGyver trapped underground with a river of sodium hydroxide destined to be heading his way, he turned his full attention to the diagrams and documents spread in front of him.

He traced the circuits to the airlock doors, finding all the routings and alternate routings that were available. There were hundreds of connections to examine, but he stayed calm and began to go through them methodically. It was up to him to get Mac out before it was too late.


	19. Breathless

The air was starting to taste thin to MacGyver, and he was feeling a touch of a headache growing which had nothing to do with the bruise he had gotten from the airlock door. A flutter of claustrophobia surfed through his mind, urging the cells of his body to leap into action. He got to his feet and tried not to show the anxiety he was feeling.

_Don't panic, Mac! Something **has** to happen soon…_

Pete's voice saved him from drowning. "Listen, we're repairing the circuits that open the airlock doors that are behind you."

"I hear you," MacGyver said softly. He forced himself not to fidget, though he felt as though there was a tiger inside of him, pacing the walls of its cage.

Barbara stood up and moved to his side. Her face reflected her distress, but she felt an odd comfort just standing near MacGyver. If these were to be her last moments, she wanted to keep him close.

Together, they waited.

~~~~~

**Pete's Voice-Over:**

_I felt like the guy with the whip in the middle of a three-ring circus; I had technicians and engineers and programmers jumping around like acrobats – with Gantner as the dancing bear, waltzing to stay out of the way as they scrambled over the computers and around them, fixing and programming, sweating and swearing._

_I'd found and traced the circuits to the airlock doors, but it wasn't going to be as easy as that. A lot of reprogramming had to be done, new sub-routines had to be written, and we knew the hardware was unreliable… it was a million-to-one shot that this would work._

_And in the middle of it all – quite noticeable in the midst of such chaos – the Director of the KIVA was standing and staring at nothing, tapping his lower lip with a pen. Whether he was thinking hard or listening closely – or all of the above – I wasn't sure, but watching him I suddenly became aware of a feeling that I'd been trying to ignore._

_MacGyver has teased me about this – he calls it my 'Bureaucrat Spidey-sense', and that it starts tingling whenever I hear any B.S. At the time he said that, I laughed about it and put it down as a combination of orneriness on Mac's part and reading too many comic books when he was a kid. I'm not so sure that this is an extra sense – but I do confess to a heightened instinct for smelling trouble coming down the chain of command._

_I could smell something now… and I could see Burke's face… and it had 'covert operations' written all over it._

_I realized that I had made an assumption that the phone call that Burke had received from Colonel Keele was in regard to the sodium hydroxide tankers…_ but what if it had been about something else? __

_Burke must have seen me watching him; he suddenly left the room. I couldn't possibly follow him – besides, the tech was almost finished with his work rewiring the one and only console up here that could control the airlock doors. This console had been severely damaged, and I had serious doubts about whether it could be repaired in time… or at all. The only other point of control was inside the gas lab itself, beyond anyone's reach._

_And we were almost out of time._

"Any idea what kind of gas is in there?" Pete asked, touching his microphone.

From down in the Gas Chamber, MacGyver's answer came calmly back to him, "No, I sure don't." He gave Barbara a tentative, questioning look and said gently, "Maybe Spencer does."

Barbara met his eyes briefly then looked away.

Mac shook his head faintly. "Yeah – Colsen, I don't think we can get a fix on it just yet."

"We're gonna try the airlock circuits now."

"Okay."

Holding their breath unconsciously, MacGyver and Barbara waited, but the doors did not open. Barbara pressed her hands against the glass, hoping to feel a tremor or a vibration that would mean the mechanism was just being slow at working.

Nothing happened. The seconds ticked by as hope slowly cooled. "Colsen?" MacGyver prompted, alarm leaking into his voice.

There was pause long enough to live half a life before MacGyver heard an answer, "Yeah … sorry," Pete's voice was flat, cold; hopeless.

MacGyver knew then what had to be done, and the slowly uncoiling springs of fear inside him suddenly tightened into a core of steel. He drew in a long clearing breath, already planning his next attack.

~~~

Burke had slipped back into the room in time to see the shower of sparks flying from the computer console when the technician tried to activate the airlock doors. The pen he'd been fiddling with bounced off the floor as he flung it away in a moment of frustration. He braced his arms against another console, hung his head and attempted to get control of his temper.

He had been **so** full of hope that they could pull this off … that he could tell Keele to forget about the second half of the contingency plan. Even now the radio phone was jangling again – it sounded to Burke like the taunting, hysterical laughter of the devil himself. He squeezed his eyes shut. Then he straightened up and kicked the console hard enough to leave a dent in the metal skin.

Gantner stared at the greenish flames eating out the heart of the computer. A technician ran in with a fire extinguisher and sprayed white powder over the fire. Gantner turned away, a sick look on his face as the realization of their failure sank home. He gently set his microphone on a table and wandered out of the room. He went past Burke without a word; neither man could meet the other's eye.

Pete pinched the end of his cigarette and watched the smoke curl up to the ceiling. He had one advantage over his companions in the command center – he knew MacGyver… really knew him – and so he knew that nothing was over yet. As long as Mac was alive – there was hope.

Pete knew… but 'Andy Colsen' did not … and so he breathed in cigarette smoke and frowned at the computers and kept Burke in his peripheral vision.

~~~

Barbara looked at MacGyver desperately, and she was amazed at what she saw. The man's face was alight – he had a gleam in his eye like pure danger – and there was no trace of defeat or anxiety on his handsome features.

Barbara instantly became infected by his enthusiasm; his strength flowed into her, eye to eye, and she found herself become calm again, though something within her had softly changed. The concern she felt – for Steubens, for herself – had broadened to include MacGyver as well.

_What a place, _she thought with wonder, _what a place, and what a time, to feel like this!___

__When he spoke into the microphone, his voice was confident and sure. "Colsen, this is a gas lab, right? Shouldn't there be some vacuum pumps to evacuate the air just in case of an emergency?"_ _

__Barbara wasn't the only one uplifted by the strength in MacGyver's voice. Gantner had numbly retired to the Operations room to brood. He overheard MacGyver's words and looked down at Colsen through the glass, desperate for some straw of hope to grasp at. He turned and hurried back into the control room in time to hear Colsen's answer:_ _

__"Yeah, that's right, there are. But you would have to go **through** the gas to get to them. And even then, there's no guarantee that they'll work."_ _

__Gantner's fleeting hope turned to horror. He snatched up a hand mike. "Mac! You can't! Once you break the seal on that airlock, the gas'll kill you."_ _

__"Doesn't matter, Gant," MacGyver said, "we're gonna run outta air in here pretty soon anyway."_ _

__MacGyver was watching Barbara, watching him. She seemed ready for any challenge; she hadn't even blinked an eye at Gantner's dramatic words. His respect for her soared anew._ _

__Here during what could be their last living moments, Barbara felt more alive than she'd been at any time in her life. "The switch for the pumps is on that panel. See it?" With her eyes, she indicated the place._ _

__MacGyver nodded, having seen it earlier with the help of his monocular. "Awright."_ _

__He lifted the strap of his game bag over his head as he said, "When we open this airlock, I want you to head straight for that passage down to the next level. Awright?" MacGyver's accent was back. He moved the microphone to his belt and began to pull off his over-shirt. "Here." With a smooth motion, he ripped the tough material into two pieces, handing her one of them. "I want you to put this around your mouth and nose. Won't keep out the gas…" he shrugged slightly, "… but it might help a little." He tore what remained of the shirt in half again._ _

__Barbara fingered the material, working up her courage. "MacGyver. If you don't get the pumps started – "_ _

__Mac interrupted her with a smile, before she could say anything negative that might jinx them. " **Heey!** Hey – "_ _

__Barbara smiled back at him. " – I just wanted to say…" Instead of speaking, she substituted action for words, and gently kissed him on the lips. Pulling back with a smile, she added, "Thanks."_ _

__MacGyver glowed at her. "You bet." He covered his grin with a piece of fabric, tying it behind his head. Barbara did the same._ _

__"Take a few deep breaths before this goes," he advised her. She nodded._ _

__Mac resettled his game bag over his shoulder, and then wound the remaining scrap of his flannel shirt over the knuckles of his right hand. With no more warning than a nod to Barbara, he drew in a massive breath – and drove his fist straight through the glass!_ _

__It shattered loudly, pieces flying in every direction. A piercing alarm began shrieking in their ears. MacGyver threw more punches, knocking out the rest of the pane. He ran his wrapped hand around the edge of the window to clear the glass as quickly as possible. He leapt into the lab, conscious of the danger of jagged edges but nevertheless in too much of a hurry to be over-careful; he felt a shard bite into his unprotected left hand as he vaulted through the opening. He ignored the distraction and turned to help Barbara as she crawled over the wall._ _

__He led the way down a short ladder and into the pool of fog. Barbara obediently hurried on toward the exit, while MacGyver moved directly toward the control panels._ _

__Barbara's movement cleft a wake through the thick smoke. She clutched the fabric of MacGyver's shirt over her face as she ran, counting slowly to herself. She knew how long she could hold her breath… and she knew about how much time she had._ _

__She picked her way quickly through a pile of boxes and bins scattered through the passage, narrowly avoiding tripping over the body of an unfortunate scientist. She nearly gasped in shock as she staggered. Clamping one hand over her mouth and nose to hold in the scream, she ran on until she reached the exit._ _

__The airlock responded immediately when she slapped the release, and she whirled into the room as the doors closed with a sigh, biting off a tendril of the deadly fog that had followed her. She stared at it, still holding her breath, as it quickly melted out of the room through a vent._ _

__Then she permitted herself a long, ragged breath of relief. She held it in for a few seconds, and then she hurled herself away from the wall, slamming her hand on the release button. When the door began to slide open, she didn't wait but inserted her body as soon as it was wide enough to let her through and admit her into the twin of the lab she had just crossed._ _

__MacGyver headed directly to the control panel and began punching the buttons for the pump controls. There was no response. He pressed the buttons again, firmly, then dug his nails behind the panel and pulled it straight out of the console. Turning it upward to expose the guts, he yanked out the wires that led to the dead controls and stripped them, crossing the naked copper._ _

__Spark began to fly out of the panel, biting MacGyver's hands like cruel gnats. He blinked and turned his face away, fingers still working deftly. There was a hum and a squeak overhead as the ventilation grid opened._ _

__The fog rose slowly as if to explore the sounds. MacGyver's lungs were screaming for air; he was going have to take a breath soon; his muscles were starting to cramp and there was darkness gathering on the edge of his vision. He'd managed to short-circuit the controls to open the venting hatch, but he had to get the connection to the main pump motor working. The wires swam in his fingers as his eyes began to water._ _

__Up in the control room, Pete's forgotten cigarette burned down toward his fingers. Beside him, Burke stood, fuming silently. Gantner was standing, staring at the control dials that Colsen had instructed him to watch – even though he knew that they'd never work now._ _

__To his amazement, the dials began to twitch. He gasped, but was too surprised to utter a word_ _

__Pete heard the catch of breath, and looked over his shoulder. Lights started flashing on the damaged panel. Burke came over to see what the others were staring at._ _

__"The indicator lights for the pumps. They're coming on!" Pete announced with growing excitement. "Can't be positive that they're working… but **they're on!** "_ _

__Everyone began to cheer. At last, something was working!_ _

__MacGyver had found the right connection and given the wires another good twist, and the ventilators rewarded him with a wholehearted roar and began to strongly vacuum the gassy fog from the room._ _

__MacGyver turned from the control panel, half-blinded by the rising fog, and pushed himself in the direction of the exit. Instead of the stair and a doorway, however, he came up hard against a smooth wall. Muddled by lack of oxygen, he had run the wrong way._ _

__Pressing the cloth against his mouth and nose, MacGyver surrendered to his body's demands; he sucked air in through the cloth covering his face. His lungs rejoiced to have oxygen at last, but within a few wild beats of his laboring heart, his vision began to swim. Then he began to feel an awful sensation in his arms and legs – as if pins and needles were being pierced through his skin._ _

__The air was no good; whatever the gas was, it was blocking his ability to absorb oxygen. He coughed out what he had breathed in, his throat closing in reflex, and began to stumble back the way he'd come._ _

__The smoke was disappearing though the vents, but not fast enough. Numb and half-unconscious, MacGyver's blind fingers found an oval hatch in the wall. With desperate strength he wrenched it open and slithered through, hoping to find clean air on the other side._ _

__What he found was another room bathed in fog. He dropped to the floor, his arms and legs disobeying him at last. The white tide rose up and swallowed him as he faded from consciousness._ _


	20. Chemistry

Barbara moved quickly through the second lab, heading directly toward the emergency supply cabinet. The fog in this room was not so heavy here as in the first lab, but she knew it was just as potentially dangerous. She held her breath again and, even though it offered no protection against the gas, she kept the cloth that MacGyver had given her pressed firmly over her nose and mouth – the feeling of security that the thin fabric provided was purely psychological, she knew, but – it **did** make her feel safer.

The cabinets were not locked; she knew that they wouldn't be. She yanked the doors open and reached unerringly for what she needed. She strapped on the respirator – complete with a small oxygen tank – and drew a greedy breath of the cool, treated air. Then she grabbed another tank and mask for MacGyver and hurried back out of the lab.

MacGyver was not there yet. Setting her supplies on the floor, Barbara went to peer through the porthole into the lab. All she could see was a white swirl; the gas had been stirred up into an vast cloud by her earlier passage, and had not subsided. She could see no sign of MacGyver.

As she waited, however, the vacuum pumps roared to life and the gas began to rise and thin rapidly, sucked into the numerous vents all throughout the lab. _He's done it!_ She laughed into her mask with excitement and relief, eagerly searching the room with her eyes, expecting to see MacGyver appear any second, barreling toward her with his shirt over his nose like a bandit. Long seconds passed, and she began to frown.

_Even the most experienced diver could not have held his breath for so long – something must have gone wrong!_ "Come on, Mac... I really don't want to go back in there..." Her palms went clammy at the very thought of it, but if Mac was in trouble . . .

Barbara placed her hand over the door release to the first lab, but just as she did so something crashed noisily in the other lab. Startled, Barbara charged back into that room.

The gas in the second lab was not being vented out; the vacuum pumps in this lab were on a separate circuit, and it hadn't occurred to her to try to turn them on. Swearing sharply, she waded through the milky smoke. She could not see anything, but there was movement in the fog nearby; a hatch was open between the two labs and some of the fog was being drawn slowly through. It had not been open the first time Barbara had passed – she was sure she would have noticed if it had been.

Barbara hurried toward the opening, but with a sickening lurch she stumbled and fell over something on the floor that had been invisible under the cloud of gas. She jerked herself up with a muffled gasp, realizing that she had tripped over a body, and her gasp rose into a sharp cry as she realized whose body it was.

"Oh, my God... **Mac!** "

He lay crouched on the floor, his head down on his forearms as if he had been crawling and could go no further. The scrap of cloth he had tied like a bandanna around his face he held pressed to his mouth and nose, his eyes shut tight.

"MacGyver? Mac? Can you hear me?" Barbara touched his throat and the hammering of his desperate pulse beat against her fingers, but when she laid her hand on his chest, she could feel no breath moving within him, only the tremor of straining muscle. "Let's get you out of here, Mac – come on!"

MacGyver was far too heavy for Barbara to carry, but she had to try. To her relief, MacGyver actually helped her; he drew his knees up and pushed forward, falling as soon as he did but managing to get moving in the right direction. Barbara half-supported, half-pulled him toward the door. "That's it ... that's it! Just a few feet further..."

He fell twice more, and after the second time Barbara simply seized his arm and dragged him the rest of the way out of the lab.

~~~

MacGyver became aware of a feeling like he was drowning – and suffocating and starving – all at the same time. Something warm and wet was pressing against his mouth, sending trickles of water down into his drowning lungs. He found that he could swallow again – his throat was no longer locked and frozen – and he realized that it wasn't water at all that he was drowning in; it was air. He forced himself to relax his jaws, permitting a short, questioning breath to flow into his lungs. It made his head spin and he felt a deep, vertiginous sensation in his stomach – but the horrible stabbing pains in his body began to ebb away. The shock of the release from pain made him drag in another breath, erasing more of his discomfort.

The warmth on his mouth disappeared, to be replaced by something cold. He didn't like it very much – even though the delicious air continued to flow – it was sharp and hard and not warm and pleasant at all. He caught his breath and raised a hand to bat away the annoying pressure.

Something caught his hand and pushed it back down. "Stop that." The voice was clear, close, understanding, and encouraging. "Breathe, now. Come on – breathe it in – "

MacGyver opened his eyes. He was lying on his back with his head pillowed on a scrap of torn shirt; Barbara was kneeling over him, holding an oxygen mask to his face. She smiled at him when she saw him looking at her.

"I've never seen anyone hold their breath _after_ they'd passed out before," she chided him. "You'd help me out a lot if you'd just relax and inhale."

MacGyver took a tentative breath, then another deeper, eager draught. It was heavenly. He covered Barbara's hand with one of his own, pressing the mask more firmly over his face as he drank in the wonderfully breathable stuff and felt it rush all through his shaking body, bringing peace throughout. He had felt as if his very bones were screaming for air.

"That's better," Barbara said, enormous relief apparent in her words.

She was half-giddy herself that she'd finally managed to revive him – she had feared that she'd arrived with too little help, too late. _If it had taken any longer to find him – !_ She pushed that thought away abruptly; she did not want to think about being down here alone again.

MacGyver tried to raise his head. Barbara placed her other hand on his forehead and pushed him back down, gently, and said, "Not yet. Keep inhaling. The toxins in your bloodstream must be completely neutralized, or you'll relapse."

MacGyver rolled his eyes up at her. "Wha's in this stuff?" he mumbled through the mask.

"The counteragent to the nerve gas being developed in the Alpha Lab," MacGyver noted that Barbara did not hesitate with her answers anymore, "in an oxygen-rich mixture."

"Nerve gas! What the – " MacGyver started to sit up in surprise, but an attack of dizziness made him lie back down immediately. He drew in a couple more steadying breaths while Barbara clucked at him. "And **why** is a chemical weapon being developed in a lab right alongside environmental research projects, hmm?"

Barbara tilted her head, giving him the pitying look warranted by such a naive statement. "It's one of those distasteful projects that one is obligated to work on when someone else is footing the bill for your research."

"Beautiful," MacGyver muttered ironically. Closing his eyes, he let his hungry lungs devour the steady stream of cool air. He felt better every second that he lay there. He almost felt as if he could take a nap right there on the cold, hard floor – but for the pressing business that he could not completely forget, regardless of how comfortable he might be. "Good thing _one_ of us knows what's going on around here."

Barbara's expression showed no trace of shame or resentment at MacGyver's statement; "I knew what the gas was, obviously – and I knew what to do if we inhaled any. Would knowing beforehand truly have made any difference?" She removed her hand from his head and allowed him to sit up, but watched him closely.

MacGyver leaned against the wall, still holding the mask in place. The dial on the respirator was edging smoothly toward empty. He took in the last few breaths with relish, then cautiously lowered the mask and sniffed the air. "It _might_ have – but probably not. It's not like we were drowning in choices." He met Barbara's eyes directly as he added, in a voice as reasonable as he could manage, "I'd prefer, from here on in, to be in-the-know on anything else like this, please."

Barbara returned his gaze levelly. "There were no experiments conducted on the Rainmaker project this morning," she began to speak, finally answering the question that MacGyver had repeatedly asked. "Dr. Marlow had just arrived, and I was supposed to take him on a tour of the facilities while Dr. Steubens reviewed the results of a test series that the Syndrex Corporation had conducted outside of the lab. But that isn't what happened… Dr. Steubens changed his mind and he and Dr. Marlow sat down to finish a game of chess they'd started on the Telex." Barbara lips curled up on an unconscious smile as she spoke about Steubens; MacGyver noticed but said nothing, not wanting to interrupt the flow of information.

Barbara cast her eyes downward for a moment. "I know that Dr. Steubens was – very unhappy when he discovered that these tests had been conducted without his consent. I've seen him angry before… but this time," she flicked her eyes back up to MacGyver's face, and he could see a gleam of uncertainty in her blue eyes as she continued, "he was so furious… and hopeless. I didn't understand why – I would've thought that he'd be relieved that all the work wasn't lost. But I didn't see the results of the tests… the papers weren't sent through the proper channels, and after he read them he locked them in his desk."

"An independent test series, eh?" MacGyver sucked the last of the savory drops of treated air from the tank, then set the mask aside. "You wouldn't by any chance know _where_ those experiments were conducted?"

Barbara shrugged slightly. "I didn't see the papers, but," she tapped her lower lip thoughtfully. "I'm not sure it has anything to do with this, but a couple of weeks ago I did see something… a research packet was mistakenly sent back to the KIVA from Syndrex. I opened it thinking that it was for Dr. Steubens from Dr. Marlow, but it was coded – I realized that it was a classified military packet. A little later a soldier showed up at the Operations Center, asking for the packet."

"Did you see him? Which branch of the armed forces was he with?"

"I believe he was with the Air Force… he had wings on his jacket."

MacGyver frowned. _I wonder if that has anything to do with my little field trip to Central Asia last week?_ Bracing one hand against the wall, and one on Barbara's shoulder, he climbed to his feet. He still felt a little wobbly, but he was recovering quickly. "How much time have we lost?" He checked his watch.

"I'm not sure – maybe half an hour since you broke the glass."

"Let's walk and talk, shall we, Spencer? We still have some work ahead of us… if you're still willing to go on."

Barbara flushed slightly. "I'd rather go on than back through _there_." She shuddered slightly. MacGvyer didn't press her; he understood why.

He squeezed her shoulder gently before releasing her. "I'm grateful for you pulling me out," he said earnestly. "Thank you, Spencer. I owe you one."

"I think we can call it even," Barbara said lightly. "We have a way to go to reach Dr. Steubens, if – if he's still – " she hesitated, glancing down at her hands uncertainly.

"We've got even more things to worry about than that," MacGyver said, checking himself over for other injuries. "Bad news, Spencer. We've lost the two-way mike."

Barbara glanced around, to see if had fallen from MacGyver's belt nearby where she hadn't noticed it. It was nowhere in sight. "They don't know where we are now!"

MacGyver knew they didn't have time to look for it. "Let's find that acid leak."


	21. Sweet Tooth

**Pete's Voice-Over:**   
_When I saw those vacuum pumps come on, I knew that MacGyver had done it again. It is positively uncanny, the way that young man can take the most impossible situation, twist around the odds and come out on top! The only thing that damped my relief that he had managed to escape the gas was that he was going deeper into the KIVA instead of coming back out._

_My relief was even more short-lived when the entire computer console for the gas lab suddenly erupted in another shower of sparks and began to belch smoke into the already stifling air of the control room. Whatever Mac had done must have short-circuited the entire array. Now we were well and truly blind. And all I could do to show my concern was to light another one of these damned cigarettes!_

_It was all MacGyver's show now… all **we** could do was wait and hope._

The command center filled with the acrid odor of overheated metal. Burke caught Gantner's arm and steered him into the Operations room where they could watch and listen without getting in the way of the technicians.

Gantner mopped the sweat from his face and tried to be patient. They had hear nothing from MacGyver since he'd broken out of the airlock. Gantner called into the mike again. "Mac! Mac, can you hear me?" He turned to Burke and said, "Are you sure this thing is working?"

"Should be – maybe MacGyver is too busy at the moment to talk," Burke said, without much hope.

A young soldier came running into the control room, pausing to ask 'Colsen' a question. He turned and pointed up at the Ops room with his cigarette, but as the soldier hurried up the stairs, he followed him with a distrustful eye.

The solder went directly to Burke and delivered his message. "Colonel Keele's confirmed, sir. They're about to go into the launch procedure."

Burke gave a resigned sigh and muttered an absent-minded, "Thank you."

Gantner was confused and rapidly becoming alarmed. "Launch procedure? What launch procedure – what's he talking about?"

"Ed – Ed, Ed – take it easy. We had no choice," Burke said.

Gantner was not about to be soothed. "About what?" he demanded again.

"About the acid!" Burke snapped defensively. "We can't be sure the sodium hydroxide flooding's going to be enough. We **_have_** to fuse the substratum rock between here and the aquifer." Burke's anger cooled as swiftly as it had flared; his voice gentled as he added, "And we think an underground missile aimed at the KIVA foundation might do it."

Gantner slowly absorbed what Burke said. "A missile?" Burke nodded, agreeing more with the shocked expression growing on Gantner's face than his words. "But what happens to the KIVA?"

"Below the first level, _there won't be a KIVA_." Burke turned away, amazed at the coldness of his own words.

Gantner stared at him for a moment, then his gaze swiveled to the hand mike. He grabbed it up as if to crush the thing in his hands. "Mac!!" he shouted desperately, "You've gotta get out of there! They've got a missile aimed at you. Mac!" Burke glanced away so that he wouldn't be able to see the panic that he could hear in Gantner's voice. "Mac, can you hear me? _Mac! Answer me!_ Mac, you – you – use your intercom! **Mac!** "

Two hundred and fifty feet below where he stood, Gantner's voice echoed through empty chambers. The radio lay where it had fallen, on the sill beside the hatch that joined the two gas labs, where MacGyver had tried to make his escape. Nobody there could hear Gantner, no one alive with a voice to answer his frantic calls.

Burke felt awful. He hated to have to make decisions that would cost lives – but even more lives were on the line – he could not risk the potential disaster that would result if the KIVA bled acid into the water table. Making hard decisions was part of his job – it was also his job to say the things that people didn't want to hear. "It's too late. I'm sorry, Ed, but – but you said it yourself… MacGyver was dead as soon as he broke that airlock."

Gently, he took the mike from the man's nerveless fingers and set it down. Lifting a hand, Burke hesitated for a second and then placed it on Gantner's shoulder to try to comfort the man. "I **am** sorry. I know he was your friend." Burke turned and looked at the computer lab. "We're out of luck, out of options, and…" he lifted his other hand, checking his watch, "… in about thirty or so minutes, we'll _officially_ be out of time."

Down in the computer lab, 'Andy Colsen' had been listening to the radio and had heard Gantner's broken pleas – as well as Burke's death sentence, overheard through the mike Gantner had been holding. He turned and stared up through the window at them, and when Burke turned and looked down into the lab, he met the livid glare of Pete Thornton. Although he had no real idea who this man was, masquerading as his Chief of Operations, what Burke saw made him take half a step back, his throat gone suddenly dry.

"Oh, my God…" Burke murmured as he watched the man take off his headset and walk slowly toward the Ops room. Burke had seen thunderstorms tearing across the face of the desert that looked friendlier than the expression Colsen was wearing. "Andy – Andy, I was going to tell y – "

"When, Burke?" Pete kept his voice calm, rage simmering beneath.

"As-as soon as I knew th-that – we had no other options," Burke stammered.

"Not that, Burke… **when** did you learn what the Army was planning to do with the missile?" Pete demanded. "And **why** didn't you tell us when we might have been able to warn MacGyver?"

"The orders came down from the highest level," Burke said meekly, backing away from Pete until his back was pressed against a computer console. Burke didn't understand why his Ops chief suddenly intimidated him so much, but something had changed in the last few minutes, and Andy didn't seem like a harmless engineer anymore. "I-I was instructed not to tell anyone… until I heard from Colonel Keele… he had to locate a place where the missile could be fired effectively… and I didn't want to make a deal about it until we were sure..."

"'Make a deal about it'?" Pete's voice was soft and deadly. "The moment that we lose contact with MacGyver, suddenly you're ready to give up on the KIVA. Sounds to me as if someone is very effectively manipulating you and the Army to complete the destruction of Steubens' research."

"No! That's not it at all! Andy… we have no choice. There's nothing else we could do! The acid…"

"I'll tell you what you can do," Pete said in a soft and dangerous voice. "You can make sure that we give that man down there all the time that he was allowed – every second! You get on the horn and tell Keele – and I mean right now – and make sure he knows not to fire that thing until that time is up. I'll be back – I've got a phone call to make."

"I promise they won't launch it until we say so…" Burke found himself talking to the back of Andy's head; Pete was already storming out of the room. "I swear it," he added softly.

**Pete's Voice-Over:**   
_Burke might have thought he had no choice and no options … but I did! All I needed was some privacy and my satellite-telephone. I was going to get to the bottom of this … before the bottom of the KIVA – as well as MacGyver – became a permanent part of the rock strata!_

~~~~~

Another corridor led Barbara and MacGyver from the gas lab down to the Third level of the KIVA maze. The floor had a noticeable gradient to it, which helped speed their feet forward, but adding to the feeling that they were plunging headlong into the darkness. And it was dark; what meager illumination there was came from red emergency lights spaced along the hallway. Nearly every inch of the ceiling had fallen through, piling the floor with rubble. Dirt sifted down in a steady trickle, filling the air with a disagreeable and cloying musty smell. Hurrying along, they became aware of an indistinct noise. It became louder as the proceeded.

Barbara was walking a little ahead of him as they threaded their way through the mess. MacGyver heard her sniff a couple of times, then she suddenly covered her face with a hand and sneezed violently.

"You okay up there?"

"Yeah." Barbara half-turned as she walked, waving her hand in front of her face. "Dusty."

"Yeah."

The passageway led on, until they turned two sharp corners and it opened up onto a vast chamber, the ceiling – if there still was one – lost in a haze of dirty smoke. The air was strongly damp and stank of rotten eggs. The roar of suffering machinery, now grown into an assault upon their ears, forced them to shout at each other to be heard.

Barbara coughed and gestured, "The tank should be this way."

MacGyver eyed the open-toed shoes Barbara was wearing as she stepped daintily over some debris. "Watch your step, now. This is nasty stuff we're lookin' for." Barbara nodded, placing her feet carefully as she proceeded.

They split up, walking around the vast banks of machinery looming in the semi-darkness. MacGyver could hear Barbara's muffled coughing. His own nose was telling him that they were close, and the amount of moisture in the air was more than enough to make him worry. The rank odor of chemicals saturated the air, and if enough water condensed around the spill, it could cause a nasty reaction with the acid.

He heard Barbara shout his name. He hurried toward the sound of her voice, and found Barbara standing beside a vast tank, clutching the scrap of cloth over her face as she gazed up. The tank was huge – easily a story high.

At the place where a pipe fed into the tank, a crack had appeared. It was well above MacGyver's reach and was liberally drooling brownish foam down the side of the tank. It ran to the floor and disappeared into a fissure, where the floor had buckled from the blast.Thankfully, there was no trace of condensation on the tank, and no obvious sign of dripping or pooling water near the spill.

"Well, it looks like the explosion cracked the foundation, too. Acid's runnin' into the ground through that." MacGyver frowned down at the fractured concrete and then followed the messy trail up the side of the vat to the crack, measuring with his eyes. _I need to be about four feet taller…_

"Well, there's nothing we can do to stop it, is there?"

"We might be able to whip up a band-aid." Barbara stared at him in puzzlement. He smiled back at her. "Our first problem, though, is to get up to that crack." MacGyver placed his hands on his hips and issued his challenge. "You think you could balance against that tank if you stood on my shoulders? That might get us close enough to stop that leak."

"With _what?_ " Barbara demanded as he began to rifle through his game bag. "That's sulfuric acid up there, remember?"

"With these!" MacGyver fanned a double handful of wrapped candy.

"Chocolate bars?" Barbara eyed him doubtfully.

As MacGyver explained, his voice slipped back into the broad accent that had put his professors off their guard when he had first gone to college. "To you, they're milk chocolate. To sulfuric acid, it's lactose and sucrose. C12H22O11. Disaccharides. The acid will react with the sugar to form an elemental carbon and a thick gummy residue." He enjoyed watching the incredulous expression on Barbara's face change to wonder and hope. "It should be enough to clog up that rupture. Temporarily, at least."

"And where does my standing on you come into the picture?" Barbara asked uncertainly, glancing back up at the leaking crack. "Why me?"

"Well, I can't _quite_ reach it. I'd do it myself, but I don't think you'd want _me_ to stand on _your_ shoulders."

Barbara snorted softly. "Okay. Let's do it!"

MacGyver stooped next to the vat, and Barbara slipped off her shoes and gingerly placed her feet on his broad shoulders. "Comin' up," he said, and she walked up the side of the vat with her hands as he slowly straightened his legs.

The drooling, spitting acid leak was only a few feet off to the right. "Awright. I'm movin' over." As MacGyver began to edge closer so that she could reach the crack, Barbara worried that the vicious stuff might spatter onto them. She could feel the heat produced by the acid as it reacted with the moisture in the air and the coating on the outside of the vat.

"Awright." MacGyver's voice was as steady as his back. "Bars comin' up. Right hand." The movement of him raising his arm made Barbara sway a little, but she steadied herself against the vat and reached down slowly with her right hand.

"A little closer." She flexed her knees and MacGyver placed the candy in her hand. "Got 'em." _Great_ , she thought drolly as she reached back up carefully, _now he's got me talking like **him!**_

"Awright!" MacGyver steadied her with both hands on her calves, now that he'd passed off the chocolate. "Start stuffin' 'em in at the angle and work your way over," he instructed. "Oh, and Spencer?"

Barbara could see this one coming a mile away; smiling as she began peeling wrappers off of the chocolate, she interrupted him dryly, "Yeah. Make sure it melts in the acid, not in my hand, right?"

MacGyver grinned and laughed. "Yeah."

Barbara reached out gingerly and touched the edge of the chocolate bar the place on the vat where the crack terminated. Instantly a reaction occurred, one so sudden that she nearly dropped the sticky, melting bar in surprise. A black porous substance, thick and rigid and smelling strongly of caramel, sprouted quickly where the chocolate and the acid mixed, instantly gumming up the portion of the crack that Barbara was working on. Smiling as she realized that this really might work, she stripped the paper and foil off of the next bar as quickly as she could and continued to work.

Mac watched the acid rolling down almost in front of his eyes. It changed from a foamy flow to a viscous trickle as Barbara continued to feed bars into the hungry maw of the leak. Soon there was a thick seal over the entire crack.

MacGyver's eyes and nose were burning from the irritation caused by the acid fumes; he was sure that Barbara felt it too. Without protective clothing, he knew that they would both be looking at some uncomfortable skin burns as well, just from standing so close to the acid.

Barbara sighed and said, "Done!" MacGyver obediently squatted down. She slid down his wide back and landed neatly on her feet. "I think we got it!"

MacGyver looked up at their makeshift patch with a smile and nodded. "Yeah. Nice work, Spencer."


	22. Doorway in a Bottle

**Mac’s Voice-Over:**   
_We’d done it… we’d finally reached the Third level of the KIVA._

_It looked like hell._

_The damage down here made everything we’d seen so far seem superficial. As we picked our way toward Steubens’ lab, we passed the massive generators that powered the KIVA – what was making so much unholy noise. The generators were still running, but at a great effort; several of the great units were damaged, and the others were picking up the slack, some beginning to fail because of the huge amount of stress that they were enduring past their design capabilities._

_Beyond the generator banks, we encountered something that few people have experienced three hundred feet below ground – it was raining! Broken water pipes on the upper levels were draining down through huge cracks in the ceiling, and it fell in curtains. Luckily the foundation was equally fractured, and the water drained almost as fast as it fell. There was some flooding between us and the lab, but thanks to a suspended walkway we managed to cross it easily, though we were utterly drenched by the time we made it across the little bridge. The chamber beyond was flooded also, but only with about a foot of water._

_I hesitated to step into that water – heaven knows what kind of chemicals could be in that runoff – but Barbara was eager to reach Steubens and she had her head; she splashed through it before I could say a thing. Luckily – again – it turned out to be just plain water._

_I was worried about how quickly we were going through our luck. I still had a bad feeling about things – and we were headed to what looked like Ground Zero – I was pretty darn sure that neither of us was going to like what we were going to find._

 

“It’s usually a lot easier to get to the lab,” Barbara called over her shoulder. She was terribly anxious to find Steubens, but she was forcing herself to be optimistic; she knew she was babbling, but MacGyver didn’t shush her. As she strode briskly along, absently wringing water from the sodden scrap of MacGyver’s shirt that she still wore knotted around her neck, she let herself talk. “With the stairwell and the elevators out of order, this backdoor through the labs comes in handy.”

“Who has access down here?” MacGyver wondered aloud.

“Other than the engineers, just the lab directors and their assistants,” she answered. “To all other personnel this area is restricted. Far too dangerous – what with all those vats of acid lying around – and all the chocolate bars up in the Second level commissary,” she gave him a friendly smirk over her shoulder. 

MacGyver chuckled and shook water out of his hair. “Glad to see that you’ve managed to keep your sense of humor dry.”

**Mac’s Voice-over continues:**   
_I didn’t want to mention the fact that, according to my wristwatch, we were down to mere minutes on our deadline; very soon, a flood of sodium hydroxide was going to begin making its way through the complex, devouring without prejudice everything soluble in its path – including Spencer and myself – if we couldn’t find a way to communicate with Pete._

He stayed close to her as she half-ran down the hallway. Ahead, he could see an open doorway, beckoning light spilling over the threshold. Barbara ran the last few steps, hesitating only a moment at the doorway before she crossed the room; but she was forced to stop suddenly when she found the way she sought was buried under a heap of shattered equipment and rubble.

“Oh no! There’s a door to Steuben’s lab right there, but with all this in the way… I don’t know how we’re going…”

“Well, we’re just gonna have to build ourselves a new door. Is there any way to communicate with them?” MacGyver cast around the room, his mind awhirl as he absorbed everything he saw.

“There’s a lab-to-lab intercom. I’ll try it.” 

Barbara turned away, leaving MacGyver to investigate the rubble clogging the doorway. To Mac, it looked as if most of the equipment had been blown through the doorway from the other room; marks and the scatter patterns of the debris indicated the direction of the blast, and he could tell that they were close to where the initial explosion had occurred – very close. In the middle of this charred rubble, a few blocks of stone and some computer equipment were less damaged than they should have been, showing a pattern that he had seen often before – in his days of working on the bomb squad in Vietnam. He ran his fingers along the edge of a shelled-out computer monitor.

Barbara switched the intercom on and spoke loudly and clearly. “Doctor Steubens! Doctor Marlow! Can you hear me?”

MacGyver examined his hand; his fingers were coated with residue. He sniffed it, confirming what he had expected. “Plastique,” he murmured softly, disappointed to have his suspicions proven. “A bomb.” 

_I hate being right, sometimes._

Sidney Marlow looked up in surprise as he heard a voice cut through the thick air of their tomb. “D-did you hear that, K-Karl? Isn’t that your assistant – that nice young woman Barbara?” With an effort, he got to his feet and stumbled across the room. 

Karl Steubens dragged himself up, managing to make it about halfway. Barbara’s voice was so clear and loud, she sounded as if she were right in the next room – but that couldn’t be! _No,_ Steubens thought, _so much has gone wrong so far… not this, too!_ Barbara was meant to be safely away on the upper levels – where the explosion wouldn’t have reached. 

Just as Marlow reached the intercom, Barbara’s voice called out again. “Please! Can you answer this? Are you all right? Doctor Marlow! Can you hear me? Doctor Marlow?”

Marlow pressed the button on the intercom. “Yes!”

Barbara felt her knees go weak at the sound of his voice. Eagerly, she asked, “Is Karl all right?”

“Oh, yes, he’s all right, but…”

Barbara interrupted him excitedly to tell him, “We’re down here on the Third level in Metallurgy, just behind the back wall of your lab!”

Steubens had finally made it to his feet, though he was leaning heavily on the rail of the stairs. Hearing Barbara’s announcement, he grimaced. “No!” With a wobbly step, he fought against his own body to get down the stairs. He needed to get to his desk… he needed to finish the job once and for all.

Marlow was oblivious to Steuben’s distress. He turned and pointed at the far wall, “It’s them, Karl! They’re right there! Th-th-they – they’ve come to get us!”

~~~

Outside of the lab, Barbara leaned her cheek against the intercom, overcome for a moment with relief to hear that Karl and his friend were still alive. She wanted to keep talking… just to hear Marlow speak back to her, for the chance that she might hear Steuben’s voice, too; but when MacGyver come up behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders, she willingly moved to one side so that he could speak to Marlow. She rested against the wall and hugged herself.

MacGyver’s voice was steady and commanding. “Doctor Marlow, I want you to build yourselves a barricade as far from the back wall as you possibly can. We’re gonna try and blow an opening in that wall. Do you understand?”

Marlow was relieved to hear the confidence in the strong voice speaking to him. Determined despite the dust and damage, he leaned against the intercom and said, “W-we’ll do it.”

Barbara reached over and turned off the intercom. MacGyver didn’t glance at her; he was looking everywhere else. 

“Blow an opening? With what?” Barbara demanded, “Don’t tell me you know how to make a bomb out of a stick of chewing gum!”

“Why – you got some?” MacGyver quipped, challenging her with a lifted eyebrow. She gave him a sour look. “C’mon. This is a lab, right?” He pushed himself away from the wall and began actively searching the ruined room. “There’s gotta be something in here we can fake it with.” He half-turned toward her again. “What kinda lab is this, anyway?”

“It’s metallurgy,” Barbara said levelly. 

“Metallurgy . . . metallurgy, metallurgy.” MacGyver muttered, eyes tightly closed. “C’mon, MacGyver…” He leaned his head back, stretching his neck and forcing tense muscles to relax. His eyes sprang open, glowing with calm light. He had the answer! “Sodium metal. That’ll do it. Any idea where they might keep it?”

Barbara blinked in surprise. Even knowing what MacGyver was capable of, she was taken aback at how quickly his mind worked. “In here.” She walked a few paces to a metal cabinet, opened the door and briefly regarded the variety of containers. She picked out a smooth, metal cylinder and handed it to him. 

MacGyver examined the label. “Bingo. Awright, we probably won’t need much more’n a few grams, but we’re gonna have to contain it in something.”

“Test tube?” Barbara offered.

“No, much too big. And it’s gotta be water-soluble. Something cellulose.”

Barbara pondered for a moment, then she grappled in the pocket of her dress. “How about a cold capsule?” She brought out the foil package that she had nearly forgotten she had with her.

MacGyver accepted it with a smile. “Yeah. Y’know, Spencer, I think you’re startin’ to get the hang of this. But I do wish I’d known you had a cold before I kissed you.” 

Barbara rolled her eyes at him, her own smile getting away from her. Karl Steubens was behind a brick wall; they were all minutes away from being flooded with deadly chemicals… and MacGyver was cracking jokes and worrying about catching her cold! The only thing she could think to do was to smile. 

~~~~~

On the dusty surface above the KIVA labs, soldiers worked in the blistering heat of the day. Colonel Keele stood under the shade of a canopy, where it was only marginally less hot than standing in the full light of the sun, and sweated under his uniform as he watched his men putting the final touches on a missile assembly. The warhead had been specially designed to penetrate the earth a specific distance before detonation. The firing of the missile had to be synchronized with the chemical flooding of the complex, therefore a reliable means of communication had been set up, linking the colonel’s headset with the director of the KIVA who was still operating inside the control center.

Keele wished that Burke would say something, but all he heard through the connections was background chatter. It had been more than an hour since they had last heard from their daredevil – and Keele knew that meant that they weren’t likely to. KIVA’s doom had been not been spoken, but Keele was in position to makes sure it was sealed… in more ways than one.

He watched as the digital clock counted down the last few minutes. He wasn’t in a hurry – in fact, he was greatly reluctant to proceed – but he had his orders. He told himself to find comfort in the fact that soon he’d be able to get his men out of the godawful heat and put this ruin behind them.

Cold comfort for a helluva day.

~~~~~

Barbara watched with interest as MacGyver assembled his supplies. He set the canister of sodium metal on the flat surface of a 50 gallon drum, the cold capsules beside it. He dipped his hand into his game bag and came out with his trusty Swiss Army Knife.

“Right,” MacGyver said as he folded out the smallest blade, “now try to find me a glass jar – about a quart size, with a stopper in it – and put some water in it, awright?” Barbara nodded and went immediately to perform her task. 

MacGyver popped one of the capsules out of the package and twisted it apart, dumping the grainy contents out. He opened the canister, wary of the fact that sodium metal could react badly when exposed to air. Luckily, the canister had been well-stored and was undamaged, and the element was preserved in a stabilizing substance. Using the blade of his pocket knife, he scooped out a small amount of the sodium metal and carefully scraped it into the capsule. 

He recapped the capsule and the canister as quickly as he could, and by the time he had finished Barbara had returned, triumphantly displaying a vessel that matched his exact specifications. He took the jar from her and nodded with approval.

MacGyver walked along the wall until he found what he needed next; the biggest crack in the wall shared by Steubens’ lab. A large pile of dirt was heaped beneath the fracture, which seemed promising to MacGyver. The wall will be weakest here. 

~~~~~

Back in the control room, the final evacuation was now in progress. Harried technicians gathered up what they could carry in their arms and hurried out past the men who were filing in. These men were clad in silver protective suits, their featureless masks staring like ominous single eyes as they hauled a large hose into the building, winding it through the labs and down toward the access hatch – the very same one which had permitted MacGyver to enter the lower levels of the KIVA.

As the men came and went in the control room, Ed Gantner watched from Operations, gnawing on his thumbnail to keep from screaming at people. The reality of the loss of MacGyver was sinking in, and he knew as well as anyone how deadly and disastrous the acid leak would be if it spread, but when he saw the men walking in with that hose – he had to turn away to keep from becoming sick. There would be no body, he realized suddenly… nothing left but bones, and those would be buried forever beneath the stone with all the other souls lost under the New Mexico desert.

Gantner glanced up as Charlie Burke walked past. Burke saw him, saw the misery in the man's face. He opened his mouth to say something, but there were no words. Forcing his eyes back down, he continued. He had to supervise the distribution of the sodium hydroxide and get back to Keele. 

Burke wondered where Andy Colsen had gotten off to. Joined the evacuation perhaps... though Burke doubted this as soon as it occurred to him. Andy would be around here somewhere; Burke was absolutely certain that he had not heard the last from him.

~~~~~

MacGyver dug a few inches into the dirt with one hand, cradling the jar in the other arm. Spencer stood nearby and listened as he explained to her what to expect. “When the capsule hits the water and dissolves, the sodium’ll give off hydrogen in enough of a reaction to ignite it.” He set the glass bottle firmly into the hole he’d made. “Call Marlow. Tell ‘em to get down. We’re ready.”

Barbara crossed the room and flicked on the intercom. “Doctor Marlow – we're going to try and blow an opening in the wall now.” She huddled down and prepared herself as best as she could for the next explosion. 

MacGyver dropped the capsule into the bottle and put the stopper firmly in place. With both hands he heaped dirt over the top of it, then he hurried across the room and joined Barbara, placing himself between her and the bottle. If his calculations were correct, the blast should be just strong enough to make a hole in the wall... and not bring down the ceiling. _**If**_ his calculations were correct ... 

**Mac's Voice-Over:**   
_At the same time that I was trying to figure how powerful my little sodium firecracker was... I also kept thinking that the explosion in the lab shouldn't have been enough to cause all the damage that the KIVA had suffered. There must have been something else that contributed to the blast... and that made me wonder what the bomb had really been intended to do. I figured the amount of plastique in the original explosion would have been enough to destroy just Steubens' lab... and anyone who happened to be inside._

_And since most of the research data from the Rainmakers project had already been destroyed, that made it pretty clear to me what – or rather who – the targets had been._

_The questions now were_ 'How did the bomb get into the lab?' _, and_ 'Why kill Marlow and Steubens?' _If it had just been Marlow that they were trying to kill, wouldn't it have been easier to try to take him out during his long trip from England? Why wait until he was three hundred feet below ground in a top-secret, high-security lab?_

_Unless..._

“Spencer,” MacGyver placed a protective arm over her shoulders, “do me a favor, will ya?”

Barbara was holding the scrap of MacGyver's shirt over the lower half of her face. She lowered it briefly and said, “Name it.”

“Let me go in after Marlow and Steubens. You wait out here, all right?”

Barbara gave him a puzzled look. “Why?”

MacGyver didn't want to mention the bomb until he could absolutely prove who had planted it. Instead, he just ducked his head and said, “Well, chalk it up to superstition, all right?”

The pile of dirt under the cracked wall suddenly erupted, and MacGyver and Barbara huddled against each other as dirt and debris began to shower down around and over them.


	23. Cloudbusting

A layer of dirt settled on MacGyver and Barbara, clinging to their damp skin and clothes as they waited for their ears to stop ringing. When the air cleared a little they could see that MacGyver's little bomb had made a tidy hole appear in the wall.

MacGyver squeezed Barbara's shoulder. "Wait here!"

He crossed the room quickly and stepped through the hole one leg at a time. The room beyond was full of rubble and smoke and darkness. Surveying the damage, MacGyver found himself surprised that Marlow and Steubens had survived the explosion at all – the room was a complete wreck.

"Marlow?" MacGyver called out, hoping that in creating an exit he had not inadvertently finished off the two men he was trying to rescue. "Steubens? Y'awright?" He coughed, waving his hand through the thick air which burned and bit at his eyes.

Across the room, from behind a pile of debris, a voice wheezed, "Here! We-we're over here."

MacGyver shoved his way through the makeshift barricade, picking up some pieces and throwing them aside. A short, battered man emerged from the wreckage, once-elegant suit ruined but with his dignity intact. Behind him a taller, older man with wild grey hair matted with blood and ash staggered to his feet.

Marlow knew a level of relief he had never felt before as he looked upon this lone young man. He'd been hoping for a squad from the RAF – or an acceptable American equivalent – but he found himself just as please to see even one new face, even one so streaked with dirt. "Oh… oh, thank you…" he tottered as he came forward; hours of bad air and physical exertion finally catching up with him; his legs nearly gave out.

MacGyver caught him by both arms. The scientist recovered himself quickly, steadied by the younger man's strength. They weren't out of here yet, and relief gave hope new energy; Marlow's eyes sparkled with it.

MacGyver saw that spark. Time was slim… if it wasn't already too late! He gripped Marlow's arms and said, "Right, get on the intercom. Try to reach the surface."

Marlow nodded and moved with new purpose. MacGyver turned back to help Steubens through the tangle of ruined equipment, but Steubens had already moved; he had reached a cabinet along the wall. Leaning heavily against it, he pulled open a file drawer and drew out a small, ugly revolver.

Steubens swung the gun around, barely managing to summon the strength to raise the thing, and pointed it at MacGyver.

"You. Back." The man's weak voice would have held no command but for the weapon clenched in his fist.

MacGyver spread his hands and moved back. The sight of the gun triggered an icy feeling in his stomach – reawakening a dreadful memory of regret that followed him through his life. It also triggered a rush of adrenalin. As it pulsed through him, MacGyver fought to keep his appearance calm even as his body prepared for action. He took a deep breath and the fear in his belly evaporated.

Steubens swung the gun a few inches to MacGyver's left. "Sidney. Get away from that intercom."

Marlow had turned around when Steubens ordered MacGyver to retreat; he gaped at his friend, unable to understand his strange behavior. He stepped back until he stood at MacGyver's side. Steubens, watching the two men closely and still leaning on the cabinet for support, did not notice the movement on the other side of the lab, or he would have seen his assistant Barbara preparing to crawl through the opening in the wall.

Barbara couldn't stand it any longer. She could hear voices – first Marlow's British stutter, and then Karl's darker intonation – but she couldn't make out the words. Disregarding MacGyver's entreaty, she folded herself through the hole in the wall and entered the lab just in time to see her idol and mentor wielding a gun against his best friend and the man who had risked his life to rescue them all.

~~~~~

"Okay, people," Burke said, loud enough so that his voice carried easily to all the technicians and engineers who remained in the control room. Gantner looked away from the clock toward him. Behind him, Pete had returned quietly, and stood listening. "We've got four minutes until we begin to – begin the flooding." Burke coughed, trying to ease the constriction in his throat. "There's going to be a ground strike missile fired simultaneously that is going to fuse the rock – well, all that doesn't matter. The facts are that there's not much reason for any of you to stay here. You can all join the evacuation if you choose… though there should be no danger to us… up here on the surface." Burke swallowed, not meeting the eyes of his Operations Manager or poor miserable Gantner.

There were about a dozen technicians and engineers still in the room, Burke's assistant Gus among them, as well as Gene, the first assistant engineer to Andy Colsen; they all looked around at each other, and a wordless agreement passed among them. Gus turned to Burke and said, "If it's all the same to you, Dr. Burke, we'll stay. We've still got a job to do here."

This display of stubborn loyalty caused Burke to bite his lip and blink. He nodded to show his appreciation, quite beyond the ability to speak for at least a few minutes.

Gantner looked around desperately. Seeing Pete, he walked up to him and whispered, "We've got to get them to wait just a little longer! Isn't there anything you can do?"

"Believe me," Pete said evenly, "everything that can be done… has been done. All we can do is wait…" Pete lifted a cigarette to his lips as he raised his eyes to the clock. Three minutes and fifty-five seconds.

_Come on, MacGyver! You're running out of time…_

~~~~~

Marlow couldn't believe this was happening! His friend seemed to have gone mad… perhaps the blow to his head? But why would he have a gun in his filing cabinet? – peaceful, gentle Karl who had once berated Sidney for his hobby of sport hunting! This was a preposterous situation!

Gently, desperately, he spoke to him. "Karl, what is this? What are you doing? Have you gone clean out of your mind?"

Barbara Spencer ducked through the opening, prepared to berate Mac for leaving her in suspense for so long. "MacGyver? Is everyone all right?" Her eager expression froze as she took in the tableau, the color in her face draining from beneath the soot and dirt.

MacGyver threw down in exasperation. "Spencer! _Gosh darn it!_ I **told** you to wait outside!"

Steubens regarded his assistant mournfully. "I'm sorry, Barbara."

Barbara started toward him, but Steubens swiveled the gun to include her. She stared at it without comprehension. "Karl . . . I don't understand."

"The explosion down here." Steubens moved the gun back to MacGyver as he spoke. Mac didn't like it, but he preferred that to having it pointed it at Marlow or Spencer. "It _wasn't_ an accident." Barbara moved her bewildered gaze from Steubens to Mac as he continued, "Everybody kept lookin' for an 'accidental' explanation because nothing else made sense. With all the security in this place, who could possibly get a bomb to this level?"

Mac looked at Steubens and all his suspicions were proved in the man's mournful expression. "You and Marlow . . . you weren't supposed to survive."

"No." It was not a denial; Steubens almost looked relieved that someone understood what he'd been trying to do; however, the gun did not waver.

Barbara's voice broke as she cried, "Karl – **this makes no sense!** "

MacGyver was still calm, though he was nervous. If any of them makes any sudden moves… that revolver looks like it's got a hair-trigger. He spoke gently, reasonably, trying to ignore the countdown in the back of his mind."Doesn't it? You told me Syndrex ordered a whole new series of experiments, but that Steubens refused to accept the results. So, he invites the only other expert in the field to visit. One – 'accidental' explosion, and all this research is set back twenty years. Maybe more."

"They wanted it to become a weapon," Steubens croaked. "I've spent my whole life to stop suffering…" The barrel of the gun dipped toward the floor a little. MacGyver considered rushing the man, but it was too dangerous with Barbara standing so close.

Understanding broke across Barbara's face, and then it wilted into a look of horror. "A weapon… chain reactions in the ozone."

"Without the ozone layer, the sun's ultraviolet rays would kill everything on earth." MacGyver said. "I think Karl here discovered the key to make the ozone layer self-destruct. Didn't ya, Karl?"

Steubens was a man in a waking nightmare. "The ultimate doomsday weapon. I couldn't give them that. I still can't. Sidney… we're the only ones who can stop this…" The gun came up again, pointing at Marlow.

MacGyver grabbed Marlow by the shoulders to push him out of the way just as Barbara screamed "NO!" and the gun went off –

MacGyver turned around to see Barbara collapse on the floor, clutching her side. He darted over to Steubens and stripped the gun from his hand, pushing him aside. Steubens went down like a log, the shock at what he'd done paralyzing him.

MacGyver kneeled beside Barbara. "That was _dumb_ , Spencer… very, _very_ dumb!" He pulled off the piece of shirt that she still wore around her neck to make a hasty pressure bandage.

Barbara gasped, "Yeah. It also hurts like hell."

"Ah, stop talkin', will ya?" Carefully he pulled her hands away and examined the wound. He pressed the cloth over it, hoping it wasn't as serious as it looked. He glanced at his wristwatch and managed not to wince when he saw that they had only two minutes left.


	24. Against All Chances

The pressure was starting to take its toll on Burke. Between organizing the evacuation, directing the set-up for the sodium hydroxide flooding, and coordinating the missile strike with the Army, he felt as if he were being pulled in three different directions. Four directions, actually, considering that he couldn't turn his thoughts away from the idea that MacGyver and Spencer – and quite possibly Steubens and Marlow – were somehow still alive in the depths of the Kiva... and that what he was about to do would bring them all to a horrifying and unimaginable death.

Burke was in a crisis. He had been determined to handle this responsibility personally, but as the minutes to deadline steadily eroded, he realized that he wasn't going to be able to go through with it. He would be accountable for the deaths of his people, as well as the destruction on the Kiva – and he could handle that, he thought – if someone else took over the gruesome task of actually giving the order.

_Part of being a good leader is knowing when to delegate,_ Burke thought bitterly. He looked around his control room. Gantner leaning grimly against a bank of computers, gnawing on what was left of a thumbnail. Gus was going over a checklist with Gene, stubbornly trying to get the inter-communications network running again. Andy Colsen was smoking another cigarette and watching the clock; the expression on his face reminded Burke of statues he'd seen in Greece – hard and cold.

He cleared his throat and said, "Colsen, I want you to begin the flooding." He waited long enough to see 'Andy' nod faintly in acknowledgment before turning to pick up the radio with which he would signal Keele to fire the missile.

**Pete's Voice-over:**   
_This is often the way that an undercover job backfires on me… I have to appear detached… so everyone thinks that I don't feel anything. Burke doesn't know that he's just asked me to destroy my friend. I **will** give the word… there was no denying that the acid has to be neutralized…but I will NOT give that order until the timer reads zero._

_Until that time, I'm going to wait and listen… and if there's **even one sign** that MacGyver's still alive, I'm going to wield the full weight of my authority – undercover assignment be damned! – to halt the sodium hydroxide flooding until he can get outta there!_

_But there's nothing I can do about the missile… that's under Keele's direct authority, and technically I have no authority over him. I'll have to convince Burke to order him to stand down, if I get the sign that I need… that I'm waiting for…_

Pete glanced at Gantner, feeling every bit as miserable himself as the poor little man looked. Pete wished that he had left with the evacuated staff… but he knew that if he were in Gantner's place, he would never leave, either. Not until there was no hope at all.

There were 1:47 minutes remaining on the clock.

~~~

**MacGyver's Voice-over:**   
_I got Barbara's bleeding under control, but there wasn't much more I could do for her…not when we were both soaked to the skin and three hundred feet below the nearest source of medical assistance. I didn't want to look at my wristwatch again… not that I needed to; the minutes were counting down in the back of my mind._

_One of my greatest personal failures has always been that I'm very, very bad about admitting defeat. I'm used to fighting to the last breath, pushing on with my last ounce of strength, and this situation was no different – except for the fact that it wasn't just my own life on the line. I wish now that I'd tried harder to talk Spencer out of coming down here. This is my fault._

"I'm sorry, Spencer."

Barbara looked at MacGyver with surprise. Her face was tight with pain, but the agony in MacGyver's voice alerted her.

"Why – why are you sorry? You didn't do this."

"I did… in a way. I should never have let you come down here. I suspected from the beginning that something like this might happen…"

Barbara clucked weakly at him. "You c-could never have seen this coming, MacGvyer… I don't c-care how smart you are…" she closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them again. "It doesn't even hurt that much any more. I thought getting shot would hurt more…"

"You're going into shock." MacGyver swore softly. "Marlow! Give me your jacket!" He turned back to his patient and said, "Awright, Spencer, it's time to get you outta here."

"You're a lousy liar, MacGyver," Barbara murmured with a smile. "We're out of time and they don't even know we're down here, do they?"

Mac glanced up, desperately looking for inspiration. "There's got to be some way to contact the surface!"

"You did everything in your power, Mac," Barbara said; her voice was gentle and forgiving.

But MacGyver didn't hear the compassion in her voice… he only heard one word. **Power.**

"Spencer, you're a genius!" MacGyver leaned down, kissed Barbara quickly, and then he jumped up and dashed toward the hole in the wall.

As he ran past, he told Marlow, "Keep her warm! And keep an eye on your chess partner… don't let him make a move!"

Marlow nodded, patting his trouser pocket where he'd already put Steubens' revolver. "I'll do it," he said, without a trace of a stutter; but MacGyver had already dived through the hole and disappeared.

**MacGyver's Voice-over continued:**   
_Trying not to break my neck, I ran back to the cavern where Spencer and I had stopped the acid leak. I remember seeing control panels down there… right next to the big power generators. Spencer's words had reawakened the memory of them, and if I could find the right panel, I might be able to put that power to a good use!_

_There! 'Master Light Circuit' – just what I need!_

MacGyver flipped the switch off, and then back on after just a second. With a measured, purposeful rhythm, he cut and restored power to what was left of the Kiva.

As I worked, I offered a mute thanks to my den-mother, Mrs. Fryfocle, who had stubbornly insisted that all of us Cubs learn the telegraph code straight out of the handbook.

_I just hope that I'm not the only Boy Scout left in the KIVA today!_

Steubens was crawling on his hands and knees. He didn't have the strength to pick himself up, but he had to make sure that Barbara was all right. Marlow's hand flinched toward his trouser pocket as the man came near, but the look on his old friend's face was enough to convince him that he meant no harm.

Barbara was lying quietly, eyes closed, her breathing shallow but even. Steubens reached out as if to stroke her face, but the sight of his own hand, dirty and stained with blood, made him draw it back as if his touch might poison her.

Barbara opened her eyes and saw him kneeling beside her, face wrung with misery. "Karl." Her voice was gentle, unaccusing, overtoned with love.

Karl Steuben's face crumpled and he wept. "Barbara! I'm – I'm so sorry!"

"You were only doing what – what you thought was right. Silly Karl," she closed her eyes slowly and opened them again. "Why didn't you tell me? We could have worked together... found another way..."

"Yes, Karl," Marlow said. He was standing near, too nervous to sit down or take his eyes off of Steubens, lest the man suddenly turn violent again. "We've been through so much together. We found the anomaly together... don't you trust me to keep that out of the hands of people who'd try to use it as a weapon?"

"I couldn't... I didn't want to put that on you. All I could think of, was to destroy the research... erase the files – when I learned that Syndrex was running their own tests, I became afraid that they'd discover what we'd found... I – I – " Steubens' words choked to a stop, unable to continue speaking. He couldn't bear to begin to tell them about what he'd done – about the lives he'd already taken.

"Why did you come down here, Barbara?" Steubens whispered sadly. "Why didn't you stay on the surface?" He raised his head and looked at Marlow. "Where did that man go? Why isn't he getting her out of here?"

"MacGyver has gone to try to contact the surface," Marlow said, "to get help for us all."

"Flooding," Barbara murmured. Her face was covered with a sheen of perspiration. She squeezed Steubens' hand. "Sodium hydroxide… running out of time…"

Both men stared down at her, grasping the meaning of her halting words.

"It seems we are destined to d-die here," Marlow said, lowering himself onto the floor. "I-I thought for sure that we were saved…damn it all!"

Steubens did not speak. Still holding Barbara's hand, he raised his other hand and gripped his friend's shoulder.

Marlow gave him a sharp glance, but after a moment the heat in it melted away. He covered Steuben's hand with his own and let out a sigh.

They waited together for doom to come.


	25. Cavern of Secrets

When the lights in the control room all suddenly blinked out, those people holding their breath as the clock ticked down – which was everyone present – inhaled sharply in unison. Had the military jumped the gun and fired the missile early? There had been no loud explosion… but then if they were all dead, would they even hear it?

The lights flicked back on before anyone could say a word. Then they were off again. Burke, his face lit red by the emergency lights, anxiously demanded, "What's with the lights, Colsen?"

"I don't know!" Pete was as baffled as Burke. With all the damage that had been done to the Kiva, the power circuits had remained the most reliable.

Gene, the head engineer of the Kiva, watched the lights flashing on and off and something lit inside his own head – a memory of a time not so long ago when he played with his grandfather's ham radio. He snatched the pencil from behind his ear, and began scribbling on his clipboard, right over the schematics that he'd been reviewing. Gus, who'd been working with him, stared at him as if he was a lunatic.

"Will somebody tell me what's going on?" Pete demanded, turning to his engineering team. The seconds were still slipping away, and the sodium hydroxide flooding would begin in less than 30 seconds.

"Morse code, sir!" Gene shouted.

Burke's head whipped around. Gantner leaned against the equipment bank he'd been standing next to; he'd gone through so many swings from hope to despair that this latest shock nearly sent him to his knees. Pete hurried to where Gene and Gus were working.

Gene was writing furiously, translating the duration and frequency of the flashes into words.

"What's it saying?" Burke demanded excitedly, checking his wristwatch against the countdown. He could imagine the activity outside the complex, where the soldiers were preparing the ground strike, staring at the same counter ticking away… _twenty seconds… nineteen… eighteen… seventeen… sixteen…_

With his boss breathing smoke down his neck, Gene belted out the message as soon as he had it. "'Acid stopped… all safe… Mac'!"

Cheers broke out. In his delight at hearing that MacGyver was safe, Pete buffeted his engineer so hard on the back that Gene dropped his clipboard. Gus gathered a handful of papers and tossed them into the air; they fluttered around the room like oversized confetti.

Gantner heard the cheers and applause. He leaned his head against the computer bank; his laughter was a small sound under the noise of jubilation, and there were tears of relief leaking from his eyes.

Burke laughed and jumped with the others, but remembered himself quickly and dived for the microphone. "Abort launch!" he shouted into the thing, loud enough to be heard over the happy ruckus in the control room. "ABORT LAUNCH!"

Outside the Kiva, the message came through clearly. The radioman touched his ear as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Abort launch? Yes, sir!"

The soldier backing up the radioman snatched up the microphone and repeated the message, "Abort launch! Abort launch! Repeat, abort launch!"

The solider at the launcher had his hand hovering over the execute button. When Colonel Keele heard the message, he calmly reached out and gripped the man's wrist. With his other hand, he pushed down the safety cover to the launch trigger. Burke had better have a good reason to delay this, he thought. "Maintain your position, soldier… I'm going to go and get to the bottom of this."

"Yes, Sir!"

~~~~~

Deep underground, far beneath the sounds of laughter and relief, two men sat amid the ruin of their work. Oblivion would come; they were resolved to wait for it calmly.

But Sidney Marlow could not wait in silence. He bent down and touched Barbara's shoulder gently; she opened her eyes briefly in response, then closed them again as she concentrated on distancing the pain. Marlow looked up at his partner and friend Steubens, and spoke his mind.

"Well, Karl, if you'll forgive me for being blunt – I hardly think that a suicide pact is the answer to our problem. I mean really – if we found the answer, it is just a matter of time before it will be found again."

"No," Steubens said softly. "It would be suicide if we let them use our work to kill the Earth! Sidney, what I did – I wasn't trying to be selfish or cruel. I was trying to prevent the extinction of mankind!"

"Grand," Marlow said dryly. "You always did have the gift of vision, Karl… but I think you're jumping a bit too far ahead. Good God, man! No one in their right mind would use this as a weapon! It – it's inconceivable!"

"Dr. Marlow." Both men subsided at the sound of Barbara's weak voice. "It _is_ conceivable … not that I'm saying that you were right, Karl …"

Steubens bowed his head in contrition. Barbara pulled her hand free of his limp grip and reached up, smoothing back a wild patch of silvered hair. He recaptured her hand and enfolded it in both of his. "Rest quietly, Barbara. You should be saving your strength."

"For what? I don't think we're going anywhere soon…"

"Of course we are," MacGyver said. He was half-through the hole in the wall. He pulled in his leg and walked over to where Barbara lay. "I got through! They won't flood the Kiva now!"

Barbara's joy could not hide her discomfort from MacGyver; he saw tightness in her face as she smiled at him, heard it in her voice as she said, "You should go on… get Karl and Dr. Marlow out of here…"

Both Karl Steubens and Sidney Marlow protested her words with a loud "No!" overlapping MacGyver's reproof. "We're not going anywhere without you, Spencer. You think a little wound like that is going to slow you down? I've cut myself worse shaving…"

"But – "

"No 'buts'!"

"B-but how?" Marlow asked. "How did you get through to them?"

"I guess you could say that I made them see the light." MacGyver quipped. "I sent a message upstairs that we were all down here and would like to leave – preferably alive and undissolved!"

"H-how do you know that the m-message got through?"

"We're still alive, aren't we?" MacGyver said reasonably. "Also, whoever their Boy Scout or radioman is up there, they answered my message with some Morse code of their own, using the same master light controls that I used to call them."

"How w-will we get out?" Marlow asked. "I can probably w-walk well enough, b-but Karl isn't – and Barbara c-can't – " Flustered by his own stutter, Marlow fell silent and clenched his hands into fists.

A strong, dirty hand on Marlow's shoulder steadied him up considerably. "We'll wait right here. Rescue will be coming down with all the necessary equipment to get Barbara and all of us safely to the surface." MacGyver's voice was confident, and Marlow subsided with a nod.

MacGyver knelt down beside Barbara. "How are you really doing, Spencer? Let me see…" He checked her side, frowning at the scrap of cloth he'd used to stanch the blood from the gunshot wound. He wanted something cleaner and some antiseptic; he was too aware that they were inviting infection with every second that passed, using such a dressing. "Isn't there a First Aid kit in this lab somewhere…?"

"It's buried under rubble." Steubens said grimly. "But there's one in the lab adjacent..."

"I'll fetch it!" Marlow said quickly. He rummaged in his pocket and brought out the gun, thrusting the butt of the revolver toward MacGyver as if eager to be rid of the thing.

MacGyver shook his head. "Keep it. Or drop it in a hole somewhere. I don't think we're going to need it any more…" he said – eyeing Steubens, who had returned to bowing over Barbara's hand, which he still held.

"Mac?" Barbara glanced from Steubens to MacGyver, her eyes pleading. "Isn't there something we can do for Karl?"

"I don't know, Spencer… apart from destroying this lab complex, he's responsible for the lives of the people who died down here. That can't be forgotten."

Barbara nodded, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

"Don't cry, Barbara," Steubens said. "I deserve nothing less than prison. I must have lost my mind – I didn't think that the amount of plastic explosive I used would do so much damage. It was meant… meant only to… destroy this lab. No one else was supposed to be hurt."

MacGyver frowned. "How much did you use?" Something clicked in his mind, something that had been bothering him about the wreckage that he'd seen. "I found traces of the plastique in the rubble… but the blast pattern isn't consistent with such an explosion. Way too powerful. I'm thinking that something else must have contributed the blast. Here – keep up the pressure." MacGyver showed Steubens how to hold the bandage, then he rose and began picking through the pile of debris.

He found what he was looking for; a fragment of metal half-buried in a wall. It was part of a tank of explosive gas. "Just as I thought; the explosion that you set off must have started a chain reaction. This stuff would have quadrupled the power of the plastic explosive… and if there was more than one tank…" MacGyver shook his head. "Kaboom."

"I don't understand," Steubens said. "Are you saying… that my explosion didn't cause all this…?" He looked around at the wasted room, as if he could see beyond the pitted walls and ceiling to the damage on the other levels.

"No, that's _not_ what I'm saying," MacGyver said mildly. "What I am saying is that it's proof that you didn't mean the blast to be as bad as it was. That you didn't _intend_ to bring down the entire complex. A jury might take that into consideration."

"It would be better if I were to die here," Steubens said morosely. "Die here with my research."

"That wouldn't be enough." Marlow had reentered the lab. He carried a white box with a large red cross painted on it. "We need to do more than destroy the research. And do stop going on about dying, Karl… really, you carry the drama too far!" He seemed to have recovered himself during his time outside of the lab; his stutter was almost nonexistent.

"Too many other people know of the work and can reproduce our results. Even if we had all perished here, others could have picked up the pieces. No, the only way to accomplish what you want, Karl, is to discredit our discovery – make the pieces look like they are unworthy of serious attention. We must convince everyone that the theory is fundamentally flawed. If we succeed, then the research will be abandoned." He sighed. "A pity it will be, too… so many good things could have been done. But I agree with Karl that it can't be allowed to be manipulated into a weapon."

Steubens could hardly bear to hear Marlow's words; he would have felt more comfortable hearing his friend revile him than agree with him. "I've ruined us… I almost killed you, Sidney. I am sorry."

Marlow pursed his lips but did not respond. He wasn't ready to forgive yet. He merely nodded. Belatedly he passed the first-aid kit to MacGyver. "H-here you are."

MacGyver opened the case and worked quickly. Barbara gasped as he removed the old bandage and replaced it with a pad of clean gauze, her knuckles whitening as she clung to Steubens' hand.

As he worked, his mind ground over the problem.

**Mac's Voice-over:**   
_The fact that Steubens was responsible for the initial explosion was not common knowledge – as far as I knew, only Steubens, Marlow, Spencer, and myself were aware of it. Everyone else had insisted that it could be nothing but an accident. And they were **partially** right – but that didn't excuse what had happened. It certainly didn't bring the dead men and women of the Kiva back to life._

_On the other hand, how many would die if the Rainmakers technology was used to destroy the ozone? And not just human lives would be lost, but animals and plants – the entire Earth –could very quickly be laid waste by an overzealous soldier, or a single megalomaniacal politician. Even by a well-intentioned but short-sighted scientist._

_Looking at Steubens, I saw a man that I knew – knew down in my bones – would punish himself for the rest of his life for what he'd done. And with Barbara and Marlow's help, he'd make restitution as he could, if for no other reason than to eventually be able to look at himself in the shaving mirror again._

_It was going to be up to Marlow to pull it off. Marlow would have to become the assassin – of Steubens' character and of their joint research. He'd be the one who carried enough clout to pull the plug on all their work and on Karl Steubens' career. There was steel beneath that stutter – I didn't doubt that he could do it._

_As I began to outline the plan to my audience, I tried not to notice the way that Barbara was looking at Steubens. Someday I'd find a girl who looked at me with that gleam in her eye – maybe down the road when I've finally seen all the new places and met all the people – maybe one day I'd find a woman that would make me trade my life in to share an existence with her._

_Not today… and not tomorrow, I bet… but someday… ___

__~~~_ _

__Pete Thornton left the control room and headed toward the access hatch. Brusquely he ordered the men preparing the sodium hydroxide delivery system to stand down._ _

__"Clear the area, please! Yes, get that hose out of here! Make way!"_ _

__Around the corner, as if on cue, a team of men came marching quick-time down the corridor. They were dressed in protective clothing, not full hazmat gear like the people handling the NaOH, and they carried different gear; ropes, tool kits, medical supplies, and stretchers._ _

__"What's going on?" Burke asked. He'd followed Andy Colsen from the control center, to make sure that the sodium hydroxide flooding was being delayed. He didn't recognize these new men; they were not Air Force or Kiva personnel._ _

__"I'm sending down a team to extract MacGyver and the survivors," Pete answered briefly._ _

__"Who authorized this?" Burke was puzzled. He wanted to get Steubens and Marlow out as much (or more) than anyone else, but he was overwhelmed by the sudden appearance and efficiency of these men._ _

__"I, ah… foresaw the necessity," Pete said. He wasn't quite ready to let his cover slip – his work here wasn't done yet. He was convinced that there was something going on in the Kiva beyond an industrial accident._ _

__"Good thinking, Colsen." Burke said, patting Pete on the shoulder. He reiterated Pete's command to the hazmat team, clearing the way for the US Army Rescue Unit._ _

__Burke didn't know it at the time, but all of these men were close, personal friends of Colonel Peter Thornton and had jumped at the chance to help out when he had called._ _

__By the look in his eye, Pete suspected that Burke was beginning to have his own suspicions about his Chief Engineer. He stood back out of the way and lit what he hoped would be his last cigarette as Andy Colsen._ _


	26. Coming Up for Air

Pete took the rescue in hand personally… with no protests from Director Burke.

Burke was oddly submissive, in fact, to 'Andy Colsen's' complete initiative – almost as if he knew that the balance of power had shifted out of his hands. That, or he didn't care to be in charge anymore – he was certainly overjoyed at the sight of Steubens's bandaged head appearing at last through the access hatch; his was one of many hands reaching to assist the battered scientist as he stumbled on the last few rungs out of the Kiva's depths.

Next up came Marlow – umbrella first – whose first utterance upon setting his feet steadily on the floor was to announce his immediate desire for a cup of tea, if any happened to be available.

There was a much longer wait for the next survivor to emerge. Barbara Spencer, snugly wrapped and secured to a rescue stretcher, was handed up through the hole like a fresh baguette, strong hands below and above working to make the movement a smooth as possible for the injured woman.

Cases of equipment were handed out, between the emergence of men in their safety gear, one after another until Pete thought he might go mad with impatience – until at last a familiar mop of unruly hair appeared. The last two members of the rescue team who had exited just before MacGyver reached down and handed him up, setting him deftly on his feet.

MacGyver's face was lit with a smile, made somehow more brilliant by the layers of dirt on his face and clothes. Aside from the bandage he had wrapped around his right hand, he looked as if he'd just had the time of his life. Pete wondered suddenly why they'd all been so worried… after all, MacGyver **_was_** MacGyver!

Pete's first impulse was to gather the young man up in a bear hug… but there were still appearances to be maintained. Instead, he waved an unlit cigarette at him and said, "I can't believe you did it."

"Believe it." MacGvyer waved away an eager paramedic, but gratefully accepted a damp towel from another rescue worker and wiped away most of the dirt from his face. "You got a doctor up here for Spencer?"

"Yes. They're with her right now." He nodded toward the knot of medical technicians clustered at the end of the corridor. They had smoothly transferred the woman to a gurney and were bustling efficiently around her. "They'll stabilize her before taking her by helicopter to the hospital – but how on earth did she manage to get a bullet wound?"

"It was an accident – " MacGyver said. "A mistake."

"A mistake!"

"Yeah... look, it's pretty scary down there. By the time we found them, Steubens had given up on being rescued. Then we showed up and told him about the plan to flood the place with sodium hydroxide. He said he didn't want to die 'like a seltzer tablet in a glass of water'... he had a gun and tried to take the easy way out. Barbara stopped him. The gun went off and she got hit ... but he wasn't really trying to hurt her."

Pete looked over at Steubens. " _He_ shot her? Is he still dangerous?"

"No. I got the gun away from him before he did more damage. He's – "

"MacGyver!" Gantner had been waiting for the injured survivors to be cleared out before he pounced on his friend, locking his hand around MacGyver's and grasping his elbow, shaking his whole arm in delight. "Good God! You had me worried half to death!! Don't **ever** do anything like that again!"

MacGyver winced slightly as Gantner's grip directly squeezed his hand – exactly where he'd managed to cut himself when he was breaking through the glass to escape the Gas Chamber. One of the men who had come to help them carry Spencer out had taken a moment to wrap some gauze around it for him – he'd forgotten about the injury completely until the medic had pointed at the dried blood on his wrist.

He smiled to displace the pain, and placed his left hand on Gantner's shoulder and gave him a friendly jostle. "What? This was nothing. I've been through theme parks that were scarier than this."

Gantner shook his head at him in disbelief, wiping the sweat from his brow with a hand that was still trembling. "You're going to age me before my time!"

MacGyver chuckled, giving Gantner another playful shake before releasing his shoulder. "Don't mention it. Just tell the State Department not to be late with my fee." Gantner gave him a quizzical look. "I need the extra cash to upgrade my life insurance policy." Gantner flushed and chuckled, nodding happily.

"You did it!" Burke burst into the group next, making the narrow corridor where the men were standing feel quite cramped to MacGyver – especially after the ordeal he had just endured down in the Kiva. His claustrophobic feeling evaporated when Burke seized his hand and pumped it.

_Must still have a splinter of glass in there…ow._

"You did it! Steubens and Marlow alive and safe! How on earth did you stop that acid leak? What happened to your radio? – we nearly… I mean, you almost ran out of time– well, I've never been so glad as when we finally heard from you." Burke finally released his hand and drew in and held a breath, waiting.

MacGyver let them wait for a few heartbeats, then he said, "Which question do you want answered first? Actually –" he broke off and edged past Burke and Gantner, "I need to check on Spencer."

The medics were wheeling Barbara's gurney past. "Hey, hold it a second, guys."

Barbara was strapped down, but she looked mostly comfortable. Mac suspected that they'd given her a fair dose of some kind of painkiller. Her eyes were shining, and a little color had returned to her face.

"What is this, Spencer – you tryin' to get outta here without sayin' goodbye?"

Barbara smiled dreamily up at him. "I'd kiss you, MacGyver, but I got this cold…"

MacGyver smiled back at her, his heart full of pride and affection. "So what's a little cold between friends, huh?" He leaned down and kissed her. "You're terrific, Spencer."

Barbara held his eyes for a moment. She wasn't able to say any of the things she really wanted to say – not just to thank him for saving her own life, the lives of her friends and colleagues – but also for making it possible for her to fulfill a dream of a life with the man she loved and admired – still loved, in spite of all that had happened, by keeping his silence about what had really happened in the Kiva.

Mac seemed to know already what she wanted to say. He closed his eyes in response, half-a-second longer than a blink: acknowledgment, admiration, respect, faith – all in one fraction of an instant.

MacGyver looked up at the medics, tilting his head toward the exit. "Move her out."

They rolled her away. MacGyver followed their progress, seeing both Marlow and Steubens waiting, attended by their own cloud of medics. Steubens caught his eye briefly, giving a slight nod of thanks. MacGyver returned a tight smile.

**Mac's Voice-over:**   
_It wasn't over yet for them… not by a long shot. Once they were out of the hospital, there would be a press conference – requested by Sidney Marlow – and it would be revealed that the 'Rainmaker' project was a complete and total failure, that all the results that had seemed so promising had been manipulated and falsified by Karl Steubens. Marlow had to debunk the entire line of research – his life's work – and his friend Karl's career would be ruined – but the secret of the Rainmakers would be safe… for the present._

_Steubens had seemed relieved by the idea of forced retirement. He had agreed to go along with the entire charade willingly, wanting nothing more than to retreat into a quiet life ... especially after Spencer had made it clear that he wouldn't be alone._

_I don't think I've ever seen anything so tender as the exchange that occurred between those two bedraggled survivors. Steubens had reached down to smooth away a stray lock of hair from Barbara's face, and then leaned down and touched his forehead to hers in a gesture as eloquent as a kiss. I had to look away to get rid of the lump in my throat._

_Something told me that those two didn't need me to rescue them anymore._

"Let's move this to the Ops Room," Burke suggested. "I want to hear about everything that happened … but let's talk somewhere more private."

MacGyver followed Burke, Gantner sticking firmly to his side with Pete at his back. As they passed through the command center, the technicians and engineers broke into applause, whistles, and fresh cheers.

MacGyver grinned and flushed, humbly dipping his head to acknowledge their greetings. "Thanks, guys … I couldn't have done it without your help." The applause increased. Mac held up his bandaged hand in a plea to avoid handshakes, but each man moved in to take a turn buffeting him on the shoulder or patting him on the back as he worked his way around the room.

Burke waited at the foot of the short stair that led to the Operations Room, too relieved to be impatient. As MacGyver slowly drew closer, he saw Keele come in through the garage entrance. The colonel spotted Burke and started across the room, avoiding the cluster of happy men.

"Burke – how much longer before you clear your people out of here? We still have the problem of keeping the acid that was leaked from reaching the river. If I'm going to launch this missile, I need to do it while we still have Delta III conditions."

"The missile may no longer be necessary," Burke answered earnestly. "I need to talk to MacGyver before I can send down the team to begin the clean-up. His report will have significant bearing on what procedures will follow."

Keele took off his helmet and ran his hand over the short bristle of hair on the crown of his head. "I wouldn't mind hearing this for myself, Burke – I've got reports to fill out, too."

"Join us." Burke raised his voice to speak to the men in the control room, still noisily celebrating. "Gentlemen! Thank you all! Please clear your stations and report to the evac-point. We'll all be clearing out here soon, too." Reluctantly, the men turned away to begin the final evacuation.

Burke stood aside to allow MacGyver, Gantner, Keele, and Colsen to enter the Ops Room. He closed the door behind them. "MacGyver – I know it's been said already, and you probably still haven't heard the last of it – but I wanted to say thank you again. You really came through against the odds!"

"I'm glad that I could help," MacGyver said.

"Now that the lower levels are cleared, we have to take steps to neutralize what acid did spill… as well as the other hazardous materials below. The HazMat team will be working at that now. Anything that you can add to help them would be greatly appreciated."

"I got a list," Mac said. He dug into his pocket for a battered and wrinkled scrap of paper. He unfolded and flattened it as much as he could before passing to over to Burke. "I figured you'd need something like this, so I took a few notes on the way back up."

"Perfect. I'll get this to the team. Now tell us – sit down, man! you must be dead on your feet – what happened down there?"

"Did you see what caused the explosion?" Keele injected before MacGyver had a chance to speak.

A chair would have been too comfortable; after the excitement of escape and seeing everyone safe, the day was starting to catch up with MacGyver. He propped himself on the corner of the desk instead, to help keep himself alert.

"I found evidence in the Metallurgy Lab that pointed to a large explosion – " MacGyver answered truthfully," – I found some metallic fragments of the canister of a highly explosive compressed gas. Exactly what it contained I can't say, the pieces were too small to identify. But if it was volatile enough, it could have set off a chain reaction through the nearby labs, as well as cracking the foundations and collapsing the upper level."

"It was an accident, then," Burke breathed, relieved. MacGyver said nothing; he was fiddling with the bandage around his hand. "I told you, Andy… it could only have been an accident."

'Colsen' nodded, but he was watching MacGyver from the corner of his eye. "Yep… you called it, Charlie."

Gantner puffed out his cheeks, releasing an exaggerated breath. "I'm just glad this is all over now... except for the clean-up." He nodded toward Keele. "Are you still planning on using that missile?"

MacGyver looked up. "Missile? What missile?"

Burke looked extremely uncomfortable; Keele fixed his glance on a point on the wall behind MacGyver's head. At Mac's side, Gantner was glaring at the others daring them to confess.

Finally, Pete explained, "It was a secondary plan to prevent the acid from reaching the Rio Grande, to fuse the rock strata beneath the Kiva. When we lost contact with you... well, we had no way to tell you about it... and no way of knowing if you had succeeded in stopping the acid."

MacGyver nodded, processing the information in silence. "If I had failed, it would have helped slow the saturation... but I think you'd have only succeeded in adding a hundred other dangerous chemicals to the soil... there's a lot of stuff down there I don't feel comfortable knowing that they'd be buried in the same hole. Burke's HazMat team should clear out as much of that stuff as possible – then you can fuse your substrata rock. I'd flood the Third level for good measure. There's a lot of acid down in that cracked foundation... and that needs to be neutralized.

"But that's not my job." MacGyver said, slapping his good hand on his knee. "If you gentlemen don't mind – I'd appreciate a ride back to L.A. I got a very important appointment to keep... and I wouldn't mind a shower and a change of clothes."

"Of course!" Burke came forward to shake MacGyver's hand again, but Mac moved his bandaged hand away. "Sorry! Gantner, can you arrange for transportation – "

"It's done," Gantner said quickly. "The State Department will provide a jet back to Los Angeles. We just need to catch one of the choppers to the Air Force base."

"Beautiful." MacGyver stood up, stretched slowly, and ambled over to the doorway. A coat rack was fixed to the wall next to the exit, and his jacket was hanging on one of the pegs. He took it down and shrugged into it, sighing contentedly to feel the comfortable familiarity of the sturdy garment. He picked up his game bag where he'd dropped it by the door. Reaching under the flap, he brought out a ruined pair of binoculars. "Who do I send the bill for this to?"

Gantner laughed and slapped him on the back, half-pushing him down the stairs. "Don't think you can pin that expense on me! Binoculars! Who'd have brought a pair of binoculars on a rescue mission underground? What about a rope? Or a flashlight? What were you thinking – ?"

Gantner continued to rant in a friendly fashion as they walked away, leaving Burke, Keele and Pete in the office.

"Well! I'm going to get this information to the HazMat team," Burke waved MacGyver's notes through the air. "Colsen, I want you to follow up the final evacuation of personnel. Make sure we retrieve all the data that we've recovered. Might as well try to reduce our losses for as long as we've got people down in what's left of the Kiva." To Keele he said, "I think that MacGyver is right... we should follow up with the missile to make double sure that we contain the damage that this accident has – " they moved down the stairs, talking to each other, leaving 'Colsen' alone in the Ops Room.

**Pete's Voice-over:**   
_Burke and Keele might be satisfied with the 'accident theory'... but I noticed that MacGyver didn't actually say that it had been an accident. I've worked with him long enough to be able to spot when he's hedging on the truth. But I also know him well enough to know he'd never omit the facts without a damned good reason._

_I am in an odd position, though. I know he's not telling the truth... well, not the whole truth, anyway... but I can't really corner him and ask him directly. Because, if I know – I'll have to report it._

_I'm going to have to trust MacGyver. That isn't so hard for me to do._

_But someday – when I'm retired or no longer working for the Company – I'm going to ask him what _ **really**_ happened down there._


	27. Epilogue: Clearing Skies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Note from Loth:_  
>  A special thanks to my beta-reader and editor for all her efforts and loss of sleep from all-night IM brainstorming sessions. She made this story rock!  
> Thank you, 'Beth!
> 
> Also a note of thanks to Rockatteer, who put me up to this in the first place, by issuing a challenge to write a story about Pete and Andy Colsen begin the same person... it's taken me just short of a year to do it... but I'm finally done!
> 
> *faints*

**Epilogue: Clearing Skies**

Pete was in his office reading over the daily chatter reports when his office door swung open. MacGyver leaned in and knocked on the panel of the door.

"Come on in, Mac... you're already in!" Pete said, chuckling good-naturedly.

MacGyver sauntered into his office. His tanned face was plastered with an easy grin. He tossed Pete a wave and slouched into the chair in front of Pete's desk. "Hiya, Pete!"

"MacGyver, I'm glad to see you. You look like you've been enjoying your time off."

"Yep! I'm proud to announce that the Western Division of the United States Three Man Out Basketball Championship is safely at home in L.A. Unfortunately," MacGyver sighed and threw up his hands, "the Junior champion holds the trophy."

"Reggie cleaned your clock, eh Mac?" Pete laughed.

Mac nodded. "That boy is lightning in tennis shoes! He danced circles around me and Gant... but we gave him a run for his title." Mac stretched his arms over his head, then laid them comfortably across the back of the chair. "So... what's cooking? I got your message that you were looking for me. The Director doesn't have another assignment for me, does he?" he added hopefully. Two weeks of sunbathing and basketball with his Little Brother was fun, but the restlessness was starting to wake up in MacGyver's adventurous heart.

"No. No..." Pete said apologetically, "I just wanted to get my umbrella back from you."

MacGyver's forehead wrinkled as he frowned. "Umbrella? What – ?" The look on his face changed to comprehension. "Oh! _**That**_ umbrella! Shoot, Pete... I left it back at the Observatory! Why didn't you say that you wanted it? Which reminds me – would it kill you to give me messages that are a trifle less cryptic? I 'bout busted a synapse tryin' to figure out what an umbrella was supposed to mean to me until I got to the Kiva and saw you there. As 'Andy Colsen'!" Mac chuckled.

"Hey. I was on assignment." Pete grinned. "What do you want... an engraved invitation?"

"It'd be nice," MacGyver said dryly, but with a smile.

"I'll bear that in mind next time," Pete said. He gestured to the newspaper spread on the corner of his desk "I see that our friend Karl Steubens is having a bad week. Can you believe his own partner, that British fellow Marlow, called a press conference and announced that the Rainmakers project was a complete fraud? They're drumming Stuebens out of the ranks of respected scientists. He's being forced to retire."

MacGyver appeared politely interested, but Pete could see that the news wasn't really a surprise to him. "Who'd'a thought?" he said, with a distracted air. "After all that trouble we went through in New Mexico!"

"Yeah." Pete was watching MacGyver, who after a moment of staring at the window shades met Pete's gaze briefly. _Don't ask,_ he seemed to be saying silently. _You don't really want to know._

"Yeah," Pete said again. _Change the subject._ "Look – I've got this to go through – what do you say to having lunch early?" Pete glanced at his wristwatch. "I can finish this when we get back."

MacGyver pushed himself out of his chair energetically. "Great! You're buying, right? I know this fantastic little place... makes the best falafel you've ever had..."

"What the heck is a 'fla'waffle'?" Pete asked, as he stood up and shrugged into his jacket. "If I'm buying, let's have a cheeseburger."

MacGyver laughed lightly. "Pete! You've traveled all over the world... but you never stop to get a taste of the culture! What did you eat when you were in Egypt?"

"Anything that didn't smell like a camel," Pete said, shoving MacGyver gently toward the door.

"Philistine," MacGyver sighed. "I'll teach you about culture someday."

They walked down to the lobby of the building together, taking turns ribbing each other. As MacGyver stepped out of the atrium, the darkish sky overhead gave a threatening rumble of thunder and the clouds released their watery burden.

MacGyver stared upward in disbelief as the rain began to fall, quickly dampening his hair and the shoulders of his jacket. Pete, who had not stepped out yet, stayed in the doorway and laughed at his friend.

"You knew this was going to happen, didn't you?" MacGyver said accusingly.

Pete just grinned and brought out the new umbrella he'd bought that morning, and had kept hidden under his jacket. He popped it open and stood under it, holding it so that it shielded MacGyver from getting any wetter. "Me? No. Who'd'a thought?"

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to all for reading and commenting! This has been a great ride! I'm looking forward to the next MacGyver adventure I'll get to share with you all!
> 
> -Loth


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